Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Scientific American reports that the world economy is growing without increases in CO2 emissions, which the author attributes to the rise of green energy. However, there are several issues with this claim.
World Economy Grows without Growth in Global Warming Pollution
Energy-sector emissions of CO2 remains flat for second year in a row
Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions held steady for the second year in a row while the economy grew, according to the International Energy Agency.
In a simple, two-column spreadsheet released yesterday, IEA showed that the worldās energy sector produced 32.14 metric gigatons of carbon dioxide in 2015, up slightly from 32.13 metric gigatons in 2014. Meanwhile, the global economy grew more than 3 percent.
Analysts credited the rise of renewablesāclean energy made up more than 90 percent of new energy production in 2015āfor keeping greenhouse gas emissions flat.
āThe new figures confirm last yearās surprising but welcome news: we now have seen two straight years of greenhouse gas emissions decoupling from economic growth,ā said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol in a press release. āComing just a few months after the landmark COP21 agreement in Paris, this is yet another boost to the global fight against climate change.ā
…
But some were skeptical of the carbon numbers and questioned IEAās conclusion that economic growth and energy emissions arenāt linked anymore.
CONSERVATIVES, OTHERS QUESTION IEA DATA
āI think thatās just silly,ā said Benjamin Zycher, the John G. Searle chair and an energy scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. āThe estimates of global greenhouse gas emissions really vary depending on which data set you are looking at.ā
Global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions are likely higher, Zycher said. Some nations have had flat emissions but for unique factors that are hard to replicate elsewhere, he said.
Frankly I’m a little skeptical of the model estimates of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. For example, we have seen recent enormous revisions to Chinese CO2 estimates, which begs the question of what other mistakes are waiting to be discovered. Whatever is happening to anthropogenic CO2, there doesn’t seem to be a noticeable change to the Mauna Loa CO2 trend, though who knows – perhaps it is too early to tell.
The cognitive dissonance of reality appears to be becoming unbearable painful to the cult.
It’s what all those lower information jump/shout fire/squealers have given off as the cry of their ordeal, since the beginning: The Big Bang of Cognitive Dissonance in the Liberal West: Al Gore lost.
Their presidential candidate who lost told them ”this is real science” so they’d invest. They lost.
Then they bet their scientific administrators weren’t faking records till one snapped and confessed: they’d been faking warming for 12 years. So again, they lost.
Then some of their clowns got trapped in ice, measuring how all the ice was gone. They lost.
Then another group of their clowns got trapped on the other end of the world measuring that all the ice melted. They lost
then the Greenland ice losses were calculated for the 20th century
and it was .003 or whatever. The liberal delusion machine remained lost.
Then the Antarctic calculations came in and there’s more ice than there’s ever been known. They were lost.
Then the ocean temperature sensors came back and the oceans are cooling. They lost and the guy confessed: ”they told me make the measurements hotter.” They lost.
Then the tropospheric measurements never went up. They couldn’t find the hot ceiling in a room with the heater on. They lost.
Then the glacial charts show that just like expected from the whole 20th century there really can’t be anything but cooling,
and then there’s going to be cooling like nobody’s business,
while their cult of academic/government authority worship
wanders the earth telling people the laws of thermodynamic can’t calculate the temperature of Venus without magic,
while men do it all over the internet. Observing how simply and easily the law written for calculating temperatures of atmospheres, works – calculating the temperatures of atmospheres. As soon as word gets out public education worldwide has been teaching the laws of thermodynamics can’t calculate temperature, so it didn’t get found out one of their top scientists – James Hansen was wrong: They’ll have lost. Concealing that the temperature of a planet and your own is easily calculated from school kids? They’ve lost alright, they’ve lost their souls, their minds, and their qualifications to hold things in opposable thumbs.
Ok chimpanzees go on murderous hunts for other monkeys they murder and eat raw so it could be worse.
But nevertheless when they polluted the education system to the point of teaching there is runaway magic on another planet something got lost: all self respect.
All the while their believers run around the earth screaming that using fire, is going to make the sky get hot.
This, in a period where we’re just coming into the ”thank goodness we kept our fingers crossed” stage of waiting on what’s – obviously coming: massive glaciation. Massive ice age time.
Then there was when their leader told us he thought he would be going to work in a rowboat.
In New York.
On the sixth floor.
They lost.
The picture with the red circle showing his window in that building is iconic evidence of his certified kook status.
And then their leaders told the to tell the world all the polar bears were sick from it being so warm.
And then there were more fatter happier polar bears than ever before. Polar bears 1, Cognitive dissonance 10+ on the 1 – 5 scale.
The list goes on, and if one is the kind of kook who will join such a group, – doubtless
reality sucks in public, anywhere. Even in front of one’s own nuclear family.
What if somebody had told you, using fire had made the sky get hot so you were a sinner,
and you actually believed that?
So you had to buy certificates to atone for using fire from the failed presidential candidate.
And you lost.
Wouldn’t it kinda suck to be in touch with reality at all?
LoL. These people believed that – out of the blue, there came a complete reversal of the glacial cycles that have existed for – how long?
Since before lunch I know that.
Like since before I got up and made coffee and breakfast this morning those glacial cycles were pulling a slow one on the denizens of good planet Earth.
And that suddenly it was just going to heat up,
and there would be incredible weather due to all this excess energy,
and there would be no more ice ages because sin – the word they used
had cursed us all
and the sky was gonna get hot
and civilization was gonna melt.
If we didn’t go ahead and install Al Gore’s environmental policies, in spite of the election.
Should I have ever belonged to such a thermodynamically befuddled herd of half baked lemmings,
I’d be having massive cognitive dissonance myself. I’d blame George W Bush. Or Christians. Or people who could read a thermometer.
But I wouldn’t want to be the definition of ‘me’ that ever believed the end of the world was coming because I used fire, and it made the sky hot, and all the ice was going to melt.
It must hurt to look at us as an extraterrestrial would.
+1
No need to panic (about nothing to panic about), itās still worse than we thought – āCarbon dioxide spike in Earth’s atmosphere ‘exploded’ to new record in 2015 say US scientistsā
Weāve got ā
– rising at a faster rate than ever before
– “explosive” new level of carbon dioxide shattered all previous records
– “Carbon dioxide levels are increasing faster than they have in hundreds of thousands of years,
– the biggest increase documented in the year-to-year tally in 56 years of research
– the rate of increase is 200 times faster.
– “The emissions are at a record high, therefore the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 is also at a record high,”
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/carbon-dioxide-spike-earths-atmosphere-exploded-new-record-2015-say-us-scientists-1549269
Which begs the question, if the ‘explosive increase’ isn’t coming from anthro sources, where exactly is it coming from?
dccowboy, they’ll probably claim that the CO2 sinks are finally saturating, having spent many years failing to do so as ordered/predicted. Whatever, we know that it’ll be “worse than they thought”.
Yeah. There was a big El Nino, and temperatures spiked. The rate of change of atmospheric CO2 concentration is proportional to appropriately baselined temperature anomaly. So, the rate of CO2 rise increased.
Another piece of evidence that atmospheric CO2 is not sensitive to anthropogenic emissions, but follows its own temperature dependent path. Dr. Salby will be happy.
“Dr Salby will be happy.”
Bart, we should ALL be happy, including those on the other side of the debate. Shouldn’t everybody rest easier knowing that even china, with all it’s factories coming on line, isn’t adding to the growth of co2? Only a change in temperature can, if the trends of the last 58 YEARS continue… What kind of a warped polarized world do we live in, where even an agw believer wouldn’t rejoice in that?
Speaking of “warped and polarized”, where’s ol’ ferdi these days? (i haven’t seen him round these pages of late) I’ve got a question for him that might have him stumped…
Since Dr Spencer has closed up shop, yer humble fonzarelli is now aimlessly adrift in cyberspace with no particular place to go. (ground control to major fonz?) So it looks like i may land on planet watts for a while where i intend to do battle with “the ferds”. We’ll all miss the good doctor and everybody on his comment page; it was a unique forum. I for one have, for whatever reason, never felt very comfortable elsewhere. I’ll feel like a fish out of water (and my “fonzie” schtick often won’t stick…). However, this here IS a place where great progress is being made. Such a high profile blog has attracted many a bright mind and there’s much to learn. One can only wonder just how much anthony and friends have done to undermine agw as it stands today…
Hi, Fonzie. Yeah, too bad about Dr. Spencer. But, you can hardly blame the guy. DC’s threadbombing had reached epic proportions. Anyway, nice to have you around.
Latest human emissions I have are from 2012 (EIA), but if we may assume that the economy stalled at the same emission rate, the emissions in 2015 where 8.8 GtC or 4.14 ppmv.
Net sink rate is not proportional to the emissions in one given year but directly proportional to the total pCO2 difference between atmosphere and ocean surface and is heavily influenced by the response of tropical forests to El NiƱo conditions. That was the case in 1998 too, but that levels off to (below) zero after 1-3 years.
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/had_co2_emiss_deriv_1987-2002.jpg
Even so, with 4.14 ppmv/year emissions and 2-3 ppmv/year increase in the atmosphere it still is clear that human emissions are the main cause of the increase in the atmosphere as human emissions are already 55+ years above the net increase in the atmosphere, in average about twice as high.
One can use a lot of reasoning and math why humans are not the cause of the increase, but none of the alternatives shows the same match with every other observation as human emissions do. Bart’s pure mathematical solution even violates every single observation and physical law…
So, they want me to pay an increasing amount of money (to be determined) to cut CO2 emissions by some measured amount (to be determined) so that it will “fix” the human-induced part (to be determined) of a “global” temperature (to be determined)?
Cal
Did detect a shadow of a ghost of a /sarc tag?
Auto
Makes sense if there is fracking fueled shift from coal to gas
Yes, I cannot find the reference, but for coal there are about 2 atoms of carbon for every atom of burnable hydrogen. For oil about 2 atoms of hydrogen for every atom of carbon. For natural gas (methane) there are 4 atoms of hydrogen for every atom of carbon.
These figures do not tell the whole story because methane burns entirely, while coal and oil burn less efficiently. So coal and oil, at the temperatures at which they are usually burned, result in incomplete combustion, while natural gas combustion is more complete.
In the followng I do not intend to suggest that CO2 is a pollutant but rather other byproducts of coal and oil combustion may be pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide.
China is developing and maybe has already commissioned new high temperature high efficiency coal fired power plants. How fast this technology will reduce pollution by more complete combustion and other means remains uncertain.
In my opinion, before demonizing coal itself, more effort should be made to improve the technology for coal combustion. As it is, there is a risk that phasing out coal in developing countries will simply drive manufacturing to countries that have lower standards of air pollution. So countries like the US will lose jobs as global pollution increases.
Fred, you are not correct about the efficiency of fuels. I have designed burners for various fuels including coal, waste oil and natural gas. I have made direct comparisons of the different fuels in a variety of processes eg operation of two identical boilers one on oil and one on natural gas (the oil fired one was some 10% more efficient and about 15% cheaper in cost (latter in a developing country due to pricing on gross energy and measuring errors with the gas) Coal is not only the most efficient in net energy consumption but also results in higher process output due to higher radiation from the flame. If you want a radiant flame from natural gas the burner has to be designed to create carbon in the flame and to be operated at zero excess O2. Then there is some CO in the exhaust gases beside a lot of water vapor. The CO has a benefit in reducing NOX formation. The emmissivity of a coal flame is close to 1.0, that of an oil flame 0.6 to 0.8 and that for a natural gas flame about 0.42 (but can be raised to 0.6 with good design and operation)
Please do not listen to “greens” who all have no knowledge or experience in Engineering technology. All they know is to spread lies from political purposes.
“cementafriend”: Isn’t that what happened in The Casque of Amontillado?
The statement about oil and coal incomplete burning is rather simplistic. Most commercial systems burn oil and coal very efficiently. Unburned fuel costs money and that affects the bottom line. Some unburnt residue is left from oil and especially coal but that is because both contain non flammable contaminants. Poor quality coal can produce as much as 20% solid waste (ash and clinker) but apart from heavy residual fuel oils most petroleum products are completely combustible.
The real problem with coal and oil comes from older and home built appliances. The Domestic open hearth fire is horribly inefficient, The notorious smogs of 1950’s London were mainly caused by unburned coal smoke which included carbon and sulphur The big power stations such as Battersea produced MUCH less pollution per ton of coal used. Inefficient gas combustion is far more dangerous as without a chimney it can produce lethal levels of carbon monoxide very easily. One of the major problems in the third world is the use of inefficient fire designs. I have seen oil heaters that were little more than oil crude dripping from a pipe onto the fire bed. During WW2 in Egypt British troops did their cooking on stoves made from old food and fuel cans filled with sand that was soaked with petrol and set alight.
Well I understand the H/C ratio concept, and agree that with methane we have maybe the best form of ‘hydrogen’ fuel. Then the aromatic hydrocarbons give us a 1:1 ratio, as do things like acetylene. I’m thinking that acetylene has a high heat of combustion despite its 1:1 H/C and I believe it is the triple bond where that energy comes from. But I don’t know that. Perhaps there are other reasons why acetylene seems to be the preferred source of heat for welding.
But meanwhile, back at Fracking Central, just what is the real mix of natural gas. I always thought it was a methane/ethane mix, but what is a real typical natural gas mixture. The alkanes get to a 2/1 ratio pretty quickly.
But James’s point about the coal-gas shift due to fracking, should be more widely publicized.
It would be a real total laugher if in fact the IEA study merely point to the efficacy of fracking.
I personally do not believe that ‘renewables’ in the form of solar, whether PV or wind are really that green.
The fundamental cost of any technology, that is not volume constrained by supply limitations, is the amount of energy that enterprise consumes. And making silicon crystals and solar cells starting from raw sand, out there in the desert or ocean, take one heck of a lot of energy.
If it didn’t, they wouldn’t be so expensive.
Moore’s law is not a key element of solar cell pricing. PV energy is about how many square acres of silicon you can put out in the sun. The ability to put a trillion transistors on a 300 mm silicon wafer, is of no help whatsoever in cutting the cost of silicon solar cells.
The automation of the processes, is I’m sure an important aspect, but mostly PV solar is limited by the low density of energy from the sun.
Now I’m all for putting PV solar and other forms of solar say for heating/cooking/drying/whatever out in remote locations, where they otherwise can’t do much better than cow dung. Primitive groups need light and clean water at the flip of a switch like we have, if they are to be lifted out of total subsistence poverty.
But it is totally hilarious to see Ivanpah getting sand thrown in their faces.
It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of idiots in my opinion.
G
Crock. Natural gas plants these days are gas turbine/combined cycle, hugely more efficient than either oil burning or coal burning. Get with the times! I worked on the design of one of these, never built though, sadly…
The Mona Loa CO2 variations and trend are a fraud, mechanically produced.
Long running one at that!
Joke is on Gore, Al Gore, his high-school druggy friend came back to torture Gore to the grave this time.
Ha ha
‘The Mona Loa CO2 variations and trend are a fraud, mechanically produced.’
Interesting statement. Do you have evidence or theory to support the statement.
They have the same results in China as in Hawaii. He has no evidence for his statement.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.org/14/2541/2014/acp-14-2541-2014.pdf
They’ll quickly fix the Mona Loa data.
Karl et al can expect a phone call anytime about now.
It’s just about the only CO2 data we have that I put much credence in. I’m concerned about the local effect, ML being an active volcano, and all of that.
Looking at that NOAA graph at the top, it actually looks as if the down stroke, is closer to 4 months now, than the five months I always have believed. So that means the atmospheric residence time is even lower than I usually figure from the time constant of that cycle.
The smog satellite is evidently showing CO2 is a bit more provincial than they have always claimed (well mixed).
But the cure for environmental pollution of all types is not to be found in more creative statistical algorithms. You aren’t ever going to read a peer reviewed paper, where some new wet/green PhD student, has found the perfect R^2 value for curing climate change aka CAGWMMGWCCC.
Remember that statistics is all about stuff that you already know. It tells you nothing about anything you don’t already know.
G
Every year the increase was 1-1,5 ppm. After 2013 when antropogenic co2 emmission flatens out the increase is 2,,5 ppm pr year?
This tells it all. Manu Loa data is garbage.
Mr. Pettersen,
Human emissions increased a fourfold 1959-2012 So did the increase in the atmosphere and the net sink rate:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
Time to buy and hole KOL!
Ha ha
100 years from now, climatology text books in the highest of scholastic institutions will show that the so called “Mona Loa trend” was mechanically fabricated.
ha ha
601nan
If you have any proof for that (any web site, research,…) you may be right. Otherwise it is just nonsense which is intended to throw a lot of mud to one of the most reliable measurements in the world under one of the strictest controls of integrity of the measurements and data.
If you cannot produce any evidence to support this, you should shut up. I’m skeptical because there is good evidence that Mauna Loa CO2 readings are correlated with global temperature readings, though temperature changes LEAD the changes in Mauna Loa.
Basil
… and the graph will be displayed at the Louvre Museum, next to the Mona Lisa.
You mean that Louver picture is a frame job; that really Mauna Lisa there ! Well there are two Mauna Lisas anyhow, so how do you tell which witch is which.
Don’t remember where the second one is though.
g
Mona Lisa was produced mechanically!
John Harmsworth,
Indeed… too good to be true…
Steve Heins Principal at the Word Merchant, LLCāØ “Clean Energy,” (aka energy efficiency, new gas/natural gas pipelines, new state of the art transmission lines, solar, wind, improved coal power plants, nuclear power plants, and natural gas power plants) are all apart of a global greenhouse gas emission reduction strategy that doesn’t damage the 1 billion people still living without clean water, reliable electricity and inadequate telecommunications.
For the life of me, I don’t understand why “100% renewables” has become so sacred.āØ
Actually it’s 2.4 Billion without electricity and another 2 with “little” access. This will be supplemented by a further 2 Billion over the next couple of decades as the planetary population grows, mostly in the “developing” world.
The problem of getting power to these people really is “worse than anyone thought”. š
Then there are those who steal electricity by tapping into transmission lines illegally (e.g. the “favelas” of Rio de Janeiro) but are not counted as bill-paying consumers.
100% renewables means energy starvation for 97% of the population. This is a green Good
That’s not what ‘begs the question’ means.
Indeed- the real meaning is to assume the conclusion to an argument – circular reasoning. However, Wiki tells us that
“In modern vernacular usage, “to beg the question” is sometimes used to mean “to invite the question” (as in “This begs the question of whether…”) or “to dodge a question”.[2] These usages are often criticized as being mistaken….In philosophical, logical, grammatical, and legal contexts, most commenters believe that such usage is mistaken, or at best, unclear.”
However, this is not purely a philosophcal, logical, grammatical or legal discussion, so we can probably not worry about it too much.
This is a bit like the possesive apostrophe. Is it worth fighting for any more, or do we just have to accept that the language has moved on?
If you want to avoid ambiguity and attain clarity, then it is important. It’s also separating the wheat from the chaff. š
Heck yes! Speaking or writing with clarity is so last century.
/snark needed?
“This is a bit like the possesive (sic) apostrophe. Is it worth fighting for any more, or do we just have to accept that the language has moved on?”
What the language has moved on to is a situation where people that can’t get the hang of the grammatical conventions insist that the language has moved on.
I look forward to the day when the decimal point becomes discretionary.
The decimal point provides useful information.
The possessive (sic) apostrophe does not.
MarkW
Clearly, the apostrophe doesn’t inform you but its misuse does interfere with the coherent flow of a sentence. It’s misuse of punctuation that necessitates a restart in the reading of a clause or sentence so that the reader can mentally correct the grammatical error and make sense of the writing.
It’s CO2 emissions that are cooking the planet.
Its CO2 emissions, that are cooking the planet, are earning the Saturday barbie a bad rap.
Then, if you don’t value commas either;
Its CO2 emissions that are cooking the planet are its main liability its claimed.
In context, I have no trouble deciphering the meaning of the phase. Listening to you folks, gets the impression that English grammar rules are written in flaming letters thirty feet high on the far side of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains.
(S)o it no longer i(s) nece(s)(s)ary to di(s)tingui(s)h between po(s)(s)e(s)(s)ion and plurality.
Well I prefer the Maori (s)olution my(s)elf.
There i(s) no (s) in the Maori alpha(b)et (no (b) either) , (s)o all noun(s) are both (s)ingular and plural or neither a(s) the case may be.
g
You’d have to be green behind the ears to worry about apostasies.
… moot point ….
Eric,
What you didn’t mention is that the text that goes with your NOAA graphic ( http://www.livescience.com/54025-fastest-carbon-dioxide-rise-2015.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=most-popular ) starts off by saying: “The annual growth rate of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose more in 2015 than scientists have ever seen in a single year,…” SciAmer is claiming that anthropogenic CO2 emissions have been flat for two years, and NOAA is claiming that the recent rise is unprecedented. This apparent contradiction could be explained if the CO2 were the result of outgassing from a warming ocean.
subdecadal variation in atm CO2 undoubtedly has a strong outgassing signal : d/dt(CO2) proportional to mean SST anomaly, on top of a steady rise.
What Unscientific American seems to be missing is that due to one of the strongest El Ninos on record we have just has a very mild NH winter. There was an El Nino false start in 2014 and temps have been generally rising since 2011.
Most of the advanced economies where people can afford to waste the most on domestic heating are in the NH.
Could that possibly be because most of the land-mass is in the NH? Tell the Germans that they are wasting the most on domestic heating. As increasing numbers are being denied energy because they cant pay the outrageous energy bills, I’m sure they’ll be most interested in your hypothesis.
That ‘livescience’ link quotes Micky Mann as saying:
Hang on, I thought CO2 was supposed to stay in the atmosphere for “thousands of years”.
Also if we keep pumping the same billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere atm CO2 is still going to carry on rising. Despite his total lack of understanding of basic physical processes and his inability to correctly analise data he is still the go-to man for press quotation.
Well, I meant analyse but in view of who it referring to, analising the data is probably a better description.
If the Green Blob is leaking, and the money for nothing outlook is looking less certain, then Mikey types might say we have solved the increasing CO2 problem. However we need $Billions more to demonstrate that the stable CO2 levels are sustainable or volatile. Because this will determine whether life on out planet lives or dies.
Sounds like they’re looking for a way to back away from their failed theory, saying “We won!”
Do you know if the same change in trend was observed during previous extreme El Nino’s? If so, could ocean outgassing explain the rise? (Not asserting, just wondering.)
Clyde Spencer,
I suppose that the NASA still is calibrating the satellite and that they don’t want to get too many comments on sources and sinks during a strong El NiƱo…
Further to detect the human “fingerprint” they need huge concentrations of human activity for the 0.1 ppmv resolution and the 0.014 ppmv/day emitted by humans or they need to focus on specific spots during a longer period, which is what this satellite can do. I haven’t read if they used that feature yet. Maybe they are still calibrating it too…
Ferdinand,
The last I had read on OCO-2, was that the map released at AGU in 2014 was with preliminary calibrations. They have since refined those calibrations and are producing calibrated data, but few maps! I would think that looking at an area like the Four Corners area of the US, which is usually cloud-free, burns a lot of coal, and has little vegetation, should produce an observable anomaly. So far, I have not seen it. There was a suggestion of elevated CO2 in eastern China in the preliminary (AGU) map, but it is not as obvious in recent map releases.
Clyde Spencer,
The previous El NiƱo shows that there is an extra release of CO2 (or less uptake…) in the tropical forests due to (too) high temperatures and changed rain patterns (drought in large parts).
That it is caused by vegetation can be seen in the opposite dCO2/dt and dT/dt changes. If it was from the oceans, the changes would parallel each other:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_dco2_d13C_mlo.jpg
The 1192 Pinatubo eruption had the opposite effect, in part due to increased photosynthesis by scattered sunlight from the aerosols injected in the stratosphere.
Thus indeed an El NiƱo has a strong, but temporary effect on the CO2 uptake, which makes that the residual CO2 from human emissions (as mass) is increased.
out gassing presumably does not eat oxygen.
Here’s a CO2/O2 plot
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bCvtAJzSBMY/T9ptnRzSP9I/AAAAAAAAAYc/1NYuolWUs_w/s1600/co2%2B-%2B02%2Ball.jpg
Note how the annual co2 cycle matches the inverse of the o2 – this is oxygen being burnt plants in dark/animals/fossil fuels followed by oxygen being released from plants in sunlight
Sergei, I can’t quite make out that right hand axis – how much is the O2 dropping by? Should we be worried?
Ferdinand,
I’ve been looking at “derivatives” also (image below). Can you clarify what you mean by “12mth_avg_deriv”? Are you doing a 12 month difference (e.g. Jan this year vs. Jan last year) and then a 12 month average of those derivatives. If not, could you clarify? As a point of reference, here are “simple” 12 month diffs plotted for the natural log of Mauna Lao CO2 and UAH v. 6.5 global temperature:
http://i.imgur.com/BiqjxvH.jpg
It certainly confirms the gist of your postings. What I am wondering is if a 12 month average doesn’t mask the obvious lead-lag we see in the above image? Significant changes in global temperature LEAD corresponding changes in atmospheric CO2. Now here, on a very short time scale, the lead is just a month or so. We also see a lead that is centuries in length looking at ice cores. My question is whether or not this lead exists on ALL time scales? If so, what that would mean to me is that what we are seeing in the monotonic rise in atmospheric rise in CO2 in the Mauno Lao data (and I’m also looking into the Cape Grim readings) might not just be the result of the warming associated with coming out of the LIA? Inquiring minds would want to know. Those whose mind’s are already made up would prefer to not to know.
Basil
Ferdinand
Why are we seeing an steady rise in CO2 readings at Mauna Loa, while at the same time man made CO2 emissions are now stable? Should we not expect to see a decrease in the rate at which CO2 is rising and eventually a leveling off?
In reply to Bob Boder March 18, 2016 at 5:28 am
“Ferdinand
Why are we seeing an steady rise in CO2 readings at Mauna Loa, while at the same time man made CO2 emissions are now stable? Should we not expect to see a decrease in the rate at which CO2 is rising and eventually a leveling off?”
If you look at what I posted in response to Ferdinand, I ask whether or not that the monotonic rise we are seeing in CO2 is possibly the result of slow, gradual global warming since the end of the LIA. Which raises this question, pertinent to the subject matter of the post we are all responding to: If (a) the reported data on CO2 emissions is correct, and yet (b) the CO2 levels recorded at Mauno Lao (and elsewhere) are not showing any evidence of being impacted by these estimates of human CO2 emissions…doesn’t that suggest that CO2 levels measured at Mauna Lao (and elsewhere) are NOT being caused by human activity, but are more likely the result of gradual, long term NATURAL variations in global climate conditions?
Basil
seaice, if you click on the image you will get a blow up of it.
It says “O2/N2 ratio (per meg)”
“That it is caused by vegetation can be seen in the opposite dCO2/dt and dT/dt changes. If it was from the oceans, the changes would parallel each other:”
Nonsense. dCO2/dt and dT/dt are not “opposite”, they are simply 90 degrees apart in phase. I have shown you previously how ocean-CO2 dynamics lead naturally to the relationship
dCO2/dt = k*(T-T0)
It’s a derivative relationship, and temperatures lead CO2 by 90 degrees of phase.
So, emissions are flat, but atmospheric CO2 rose, and temperatures rose. Chalk up another one for Murry Salby.
blcjr: It’s a derivative relationship –
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/temp-CO2-long.jpg_zpsszsfkb5h.png
To high fidelity in the modern era since at least 1958, the relationship between temperature and CO2 is
dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0)
where k and T0 are the affine parameters of the fit. The relationship shows two things:
1) The long term trend in the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 is related to the long term trend in upward temperatures. This relationship accounts for virtually the entire rise. Human emissions also have a trend, but there is little room for them. Ergo, human emissions have very little effect on atmospheric concentration
2) The integral relationship means that there can be little impact of rising CO2 on temperatures in the present climate state. If there were a significant positive impact, it would couple with the above dynamic, producing an unstable positive feedback loop which could not be stabilized even by T^4 radiation. This does not argue that the “Greenhouse Effect” does not exist, just that it has a point of diminishing returns, and there is little impact from CO2 in particular in the present climate state. Probably, IMO, due to a stabilizing influence of H2O dynamics.
To Bartemis March 18, 2016 at 9:28 am
I think that “derivative” is just a matter of semantics here. In plotting seasonal differences, I’m plotting a rate of change versus a rate of change. I think we’re in agreement about what is going on here — changes in temperature are driving changes in CO2 — right?
Basil
Ferdinand,
But when you look at the OCO-2 maps, particularly the recent 12-month animation, what stands out as source areas is the upper Amazon basin and the oceans, particularly in the southern hemisphere. The CO2 uptake over land in the northern hemisphere, when the trees leaf out, doesn’t seem unusual compared to the original 2014 OCO-2 map. I think that more attention needs to be paid to the big picture (OCO-2), than to point-source recordings. Incidentally, when I looked at the animation, it seemed that the CO2 around Pt. Barrow was anomalously high compared to the rest of the Arctic. It is surprising that JPL/NASA isn’t trumpeting their results if they want to continue getting funding for processing the data. Or, maybe they are keeping their heads down for a reason. The whole point of the OCO-2 program was to identify all the source-sink areas, and confirm that the assumptions about the carbon cycle were right. Even a few thousand point-source sample sites don’t provide the detail and synoptic view that OCO-2 potentially provides.
Sorry, error in my text:
opposite dCO2/dt and dT/dt changes
must be
opposite dCO2/dt and Ī“13C/dt changes
Temperature changes lead the dance with an about 90 degr. lead against parallel CO2 and opposite Ī“13C changes.
As sergeiMK showed, the same is true for the oxygen changes: opposite to CO2 changes, which proves beyond doubt that vegetation is the main response to seasonal and 1-3 year fast temperature variations.
One point of interest: while over the seasons temperature and CO2 go opposite (dominated by NH extra-tropical forest CO2 uptake in spring – summer – fall), for the 1-3 year variability, temperature and CO2 go parallel of each other (dominated by tropical forest drought and debris decay)…
blcjr – basically, CO2 responds to temperature, but with such a long time lag for full response that, over fairly long stretches of time, such as the modern era from 1958-present, it appears that the rate of change of CO2 has an affine relationship to temperature. I’m plotting the rate of change of CO2 and comparing with the affinely mapped temperature, and there is a very good match.
So, yes, for all intents and purposes, changes in temperature are driving changes in CO2. Or, more accurately, changes in temperature are driving changes in changes of CO2.
Sorry, error in my text:
opposite dCO2/dt and dT/dt changes
must be
opposite dCO2/dt and Ī“13C/dt changes
as is clear from the graph…
Temperature changes lead the dance with an about 90 degr. lead against parallel CO2 and opposite Ī“13C changes as can be deduced from a transient response of nature to temperature changes towards a new equilibrium…
Ferdinand – “opposite dCO2/dt and Ī“13C/dt changes”
OK, not as indefensible. Still, “opposite to CO2 changes, which proves beyond doubt that vegetation is the main response to seasonal and 1-3 year fast temperature variations” is not proof of anything. It is merely consistent with your narrative. But, consistency is not enough for proof. Stress was seemingly a consistent factor in the incidence of gastric ulcers. But, it turned out, it was not the driving factor – h. pilori was.
Bartemis March 18, 2016 at 9:16 am
Nonsense. dCO2/dt and dT/dt are not āoppositeā, they are simply 90 degrees apart in phase. I have shown you previously how ocean-CO2 dynamics lead naturally to the relationship
dCO2/dt = k*(T-T0)
Itās a derivative relationship, and temperatures lead CO2 by 90 degrees of phase.
So, emissions are flat, but atmospheric CO2 rose, and temperatures rose. Chalk up another one for Murry Salby.
And as you’ve been shown many times before that relationship is not correct.
dCO2/dt = Flux(fossil fuel) + Sources(T, pCO2) – Sinks(T, pCO2)
Is the correct relationship.
That relationship is very broad, and encompasses the one I have indicated. It all depends on how the sources and sinks behave. I have shown in mathematical detail previously how they can interact in such as way as to produce, for all intents and purposes, the dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0) relationship.
This is what the data tell us is happening. Humans have little impact. Stay tuned. It should all become clearer in the near future when temperatures plunge after the El Nino wears off, and start tracking the downcycle of the ~65 year cycle.
Basil,
it is the derivative of the 12-month moving average, just for smoothing the derivatives – which are much too noisy if you do it on a monthly base – while maintaining the essence of the variability and the lead/lags (Wood for Trees uses the real centering of the averages)…
The problem by using the temperature – and not the derivative – is that for a transient response, temperature and its derivative have exactly the same waveform, only 90 degr. back in time for the derivative. As a transient CO2 response, with sufficient long response time, has a 90 degr. lag after a temperature change, that makes that temperature changes and dCO2/dt changes are (near) completely synchronized…
So far so good, no harm done. The next problem is that there is a strong trend in the CO2 increase: in the emissions, the increase in the atmosphere and the resulting net sink rate. All three slightly quadratic with relative small ups and downs. If you take the derivatives, there is near linear trend in emissions, increase in the atmosphere and sink rate. But (near) zero trend in the derivative of the temperature.
If you take the temperature and compare that with the derivative of the CO2 increase, you have a perfect match of the variability and with some manipulation you can parallel the trends, thus attributing all increase to temperature. That is what Bart has done.
The point is that fast temperature changes do drive CO2 changes to a small extent (+/- 1.5 ppmv around the trend of 80 ppmv) with a lag and thus dT/dt drives dCO2/dt with a lag, but T doesn’t drive dCO2/dt and certainly not the trend in dCO2/dt. That is caused by the twice as large human emissions.
What is clear from the derivatives graph is that most of the variability in dCO2/dt is caused by the response of vegetation to temperature variability. But vegetation is a small, but increasing sink for CO2 over periods longer than 3 years. Thus variability and trend of dCO2/dt are certainly not caused by the same processes…
The oceans may be a source – they are to a certain extent – but that is restricted by Henry’s law which is good for a change of 16 ppmv/Ā°C in steady state between oceans and atmosphere. That is all. Anything more did come from human emissions…
The (warmer?) MWP-LIA temperature drop did not give more than a 6 ppmv drop (20 year resolution ice core) but a similar warming would give more than 110 ppmv…
Explained in more detail at:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_variability.html#The_variability
For you and Bob Boder:
The response of the sinks is to the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, not to the human emissions of any given year. That makes that the sink rate is rather insensitive to the year by year emissions, but quite sensitive to temperature fluctuations. The net effect is thus a combination of a slowly increasing averaged sink rate, momentary emissions and momentary temperature.
See further my response to Mark far below…
Ferdinand,
You said, “The oceans may be a source ā they are to a certain extent ā but that is restricted by Henryās law which is good for a change of 16 ppmv/Ā°C in steady state between oceans and atmosphere….” I thought that we had previously agreed that Henry’s Law only strictly applied to relatively inert gases like nitrogen and oxygen and that one has to take into account the chemical reactions of CO2.
Bart,
As usual:
dCO2/dt = k*(T-T0)
Which violates Henry’s law for the solubility of CO2 in seawater for a given temperature and completely ignores the response of dCO2/dt to the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere: the oceans are a net sink with an average differential pCO2 between atmosphere and ocean surface of ~7 Ī¼atm. See:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml and following pages
As the biosphere is an increasing sink with higher temperatures, your formula is physically impossible.
Itās a derivative relationship, and temperatures lead CO2 by 90 degrees of phase.
Yes and the derivatives show the same lag between dT/dt and dCO2/dt with zero trend in dT/dt
T doesn’t lead dCO2/dt and is not the cause of the dCO2/dt trend.
So, emissions are flat, but atmospheric CO2 rose, and temperatures rose. Chalk up another one for Murry Salby.
Total accumulated emissions rose firmly in 55 years, so did the increase in the atmosphere,which gives the sink rate, not the momentary emissions, and so did the net sinks. Momentary influence of Pinatubo and El NiƱo episodes +/- 1.5 ppmv around the 80 ppmv trend. That is all, zeroing after 1-3 years.
90% from the trend from CO2 emissions, 10% from temperature trend (oceans).
It is merely consistent with your narrative. But, consistency is not enough for proof.
Bart as your theory violates about every single observation and at the same time you don’t accept any observation that contradicts your narrative, your theory is of course beyond any doubt.
If you don’t want to believe that my explanation of the opposite CO2 and Ī“13C changes is as rock solid as saying that the pH of a solution goes down if you add an acid, then consult someone you trust who can explain it to you in detail…
Clyde Spencer:
I thought that we had previously agreed that Henryās Law only strictly applied to relatively inert gases like nitrogen and oxygen and that one has to take into account the chemical reactions of CO2.
Henry’s law is always applicable, be it for free CO2 only. The rest of the carbon species (bicarbonates, carbonates) are in equilibrium with free CO2 at one side and pH on the other side. The combination of these factors is expressed in the Revelle/buffer factor. That gives that for a limited change in temperature, like 1Ā°C, there is a fixed change in pCO2 pressure of seawater of about 16 Ī¼atm.
For an ocean at steady state at a certain temperature, that means that an increase of average 1Ā°C in surface temperature is fully compensated with an increase of 16 Ī¼atm in CO2 pressure (which is ~16 ppmv) in the atmosphere, thus back to steady state. That is all…
“Which violates Henryās law for the solubility of CO2 in seawater…”
Improper application of Henry’s Law. This is a dynamic process, with CO2 laden waters constantly surfacing, and being drawn down, in their many centuries trek through the depths. In such a condition, a temperature increase causes a steady, long term accumulation.
“Bart as your theory violates about every single observation …”
Nonsense. It violates no observation. The attribution of the rise to humans, however, does violate the observation that dCO2/dt = k*(T – T0).
“If you donāt want to believe that my explanation ofā¦”
Sorry, mere consistency. Not proof.
Dr Roy W Spencer 1/25/2015: “The oceans have warmed depending on the depth, by hundreths of a degree over the ~50 years they have been monitored that’s all. It’s questionable whether the deep ocean warming is even real because it is so small and the error bars on the measurement are large.”
Bart, yours is a well articulated point and i think that you’ve “nailed it”. I figure if we can’t go to doctor spencer, then i may have to bring him to us… If the deep ocean temp changes are negligible, then one can view those ocean temps as pretty much the same when compared to the changing surface temps. When the co2 rich waters come up from the deep and hit those surface waters they would presumably outgass according to how large the temperature difference is. That is to say, according to your graph of a change in carbon growth being caused by a change in surface temperature. Now, i just so happen to be a “trenberther” and what i think that you have described is (your) “immaculate convection” here. (i don’t want to say this too loud at this blog as i’d hate to get spitballs all over my leather jacket…) All that is needed is a warmer SST, not necessarily a warming SST, for the oceans to warm and hence outgass co2 accordingly. Centuries ago, when the ocean was more or less at a temperature equilibrium (as evidenced by no carbon growth according to your graph) a surface temp that was steady would not produce ocean warming. Now that the ocean is out of that temperature equlibrium, the steady SSTs cause the deep ocean to warm and presumably outgass co2… I think this causes big problems for agw believers, Trenberth being a classic case of “be careful what you ask for, you just might get it”. How is it that during the recent pause in global temps that the oceans are warming faster than “evah” and yet are not outgassing co2 faster than ever?
afonzarelli,
When upwelling water is involved, it isn’t just an increase in temperature that is important, it is also the decrease in pressure that results in out-gassing. Pressure may even be more important than temperature. Which leads to another consideration: if there are changes in the frequency or volume of upwelling, then CO2 might be added to the atmosphere in quantities greater than predicted by temperature changes and Harvey’s law alone.
Bart:
Improper application of Henryās Law. This is a dynamic process, with CO2 laden waters constantly surfacing, and being drawn down, in their many centuries trek through the depths. In such a condition, a temperature increase causes a steady, long term accumulation.
Which simply proves that you have no idea what you are talking about. There is no way that a continuous extra input of CO2, due to higher temperatures, is not countered by the resulting increase of CO2 pressure in the atmosphere. That happens as well as at the upwelling side as on the sink side.
The higher temperatures at the upwelling side increase the local pCO2 of the water with 16 Ī¼atm/Ā°C which leads to ~5% more input of CO2 as the input is linearly proportional to the pCO2 difference between ocean surface and atmosphere.
The higher temperatures at the sink side increase the local pCO2 of the water with 16 Ī¼atm/Ā°C which leads to ~5% less output of CO2 as the input is linearly proportional to the pCO2 difference between ocean surface and atmosphere.
Both give an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. The increase counteracts the extra input and decreased output. When the increase is around 16 ppmv/Ā°C, the original fluxes (and steady state if there was one) are restored, be it at a higher CO2 level per Henry’s law: the same 16 ppmv/Ā°C as for a static sample…
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/upwelling_temp.jpg
Copy paste, always a dangerous thing to do:
which leads to ~5% less output of CO2 as the input is linearly proportional…
must be
which leads to ~5% less output of CO2 as the output is linearly proportional…
“Which simply proves that you have no idea what you are talking about. There is no way that a continuous extra input of CO2, due to higher temperatures, is not countered by the resulting increase of CO2 pressure in the atmosphere. That happens as well as at the upwelling side as on the sink side.”
I’m sorry, Ferdinand, but that is just idiotic. What you are describing is simply the equilibration process between atmosphere and ocean. It’s not a pressure that forces more CO2 to downwell.
That is the fundamental problem – that less CO2 downwells than upwells. That leads to an accumulation of CO2 within the surface waters, which then equilibrates with the atmospheric content. The atmospheric content is the flea that rides on the ocean elephant’s back.
Bart,
It seems that you both are overlooking the biogenic CO2 that upwells. It isn’t just the CO2 in the atmosphere that has to be considered, because the CO2-saturated, downwelling water becomes enriched with CO2 produced by decomposition of organic matter and stays in solution, because of the high pressure and low temperature, until it arrives back at the surface. So, the upwelling water has more CO2 than downwelling water, all other things being equal.
Bart:
That is the fundamental problem ā that less CO2 downwells than upwells. That leads to an accumulation of CO2 within the surface waters, which then equilibrates with the atmospheric content.
Bart, you are a master in high frequency processes, but it seems quite difficult to convince you of the more simple processes down to earth…
– The total CO2/derivatives content of the ocean surface is about 1000 GtC.
– The total CO2 content of the atmosphere is about 800 GtC.
Both are in close contact with each other and exchange CO2 in a rapid way according to the local pCO2 difference between atmosphere and ocean surface.
– Upwelling waters flow from the upwelling places towards the poles.
– Depending of the local concentration and temperature CO2 is exchanged between ocean surface and atmosphere in the direction of the lowest pCO2.
– In practice, some 40 GtC CO2 is released by the warmed up upwelling waters near the equator and about the same amount is reabsorbed when the waters cool down on their way towards the poles.
– Important point: there is hardly any exchange of CO2 in the water layer between one volume and the adjacent volumes before and after it in the flow direction: all CO2 exchanges are via the atmosphere and to a lesser extent with the deep oceans via the biosphere,
– If the temperature of the ocean surface increases, that indeed gives that more CO2 is released at the “warm” side and less is absorbed at the “cold” side. Thus indeed less CO2 downwells than upwells.
– The net result is an increase of the CO2 pressure in the atmosphere.
– The increase in the atmosphere reduces the release at the warm side and increases the uptake at the cold side, thus reducing the difference between releases and sinks. Until both are back at steady state.
– There is a limit in what the ocean surface can take away or release in equilibrium with the atmosphere, due to ocean chemistry: about 10% of the change in the atmosphere. Thus any change in ocean upwelling or temperature is reflected much more pronounced in the atmosphere than in the ocean surface.
– There is no way that CO2 can accumulate in the water layer only as long as there is close contact with the atmosphere.
– The net difference between upwelling releases and sinks uptake is directly proportional to the area weighted average pCO2 difference between atmosphere and oceans which is currently 7 Ī¼atm. Thus the net flux is from atmosphere into the oceans, not reverse and the net sink is ~3 GtC higher than the upwelling.
The atmosphere is the elephant here, the ocean surface is the flea…
Ferdinand
You said, “In practice, some 40 GtC CO2 is released by the warmed up upwelling waters near the equator and about the same amount is reabsorbed when the waters cool down on their way towards the poles.”
Are you not overlooking the production of biogenic CO2 in the downwelling water and the role of decreasing pressure acting on upwelling water? You seem to focus on the changes produced by increasing temperature as predicted by Harvey’s Law, yet have said little about the role of decomposition of organic material at depths, and the decreasing pressure acting on upwelling waters.
Clyde Spencer,
The discussion with Bart – for several years now – is about the influence of temperature on the CO2 release from the oceans and thus the CO2 level in the atmosphere.
Of course there is a huge influence of the biosphere in the upwelling waters, to the joy of the seals and fishermen off the Peruvian/Chilean coasts, but if we may assume that in the upwelling both the amount of water and CO2/derivatives concentration is fairly constant and also the effect of the biosphere is fairly constant, the main discussion can go on about the effect of temperature only on the local pCO2 over the length of the THC/Gulf Stream from upwelling to sinks…
The point where Bart has difficulties to understand is that there is no “pilling up” of CO2 in the surface waters, as CO2 simply is contained in a parcel of water that is moving from upwelling to sinks, where the only exchange of CO2 is with the atmosphere (and some with the deep oceans via life forms) hardly within the water flow…
You have a good point, Clyde, but I have not yet thought about it enough to comment on how I might think it would all work out.
Ferdinand, not so much.
“ā If the temperature of the ocean surface increases, that indeed gives that more CO2 is released at the āwarmā side and less is absorbed at the ācoldā side. Thus indeed less CO2 downwells than upwells.”
No, that is not why. Less downwells because the water has to get cold and saline enough to downwell, and it is doing so in a smaller area nearer the poles. This changes the entire character of the THC overturning, a small amount relative to the entire system, but substantial in terms of CO2 transport.
“The atmosphere is the elephant here, the ocean surface is the fleaā¦”
You give me headaches when you say things like that.
Bart:
No, that is not why. Less downwells because the water has to get cold and saline enough to downwell, and it is doing so in a smaller area nearer the poles.
Hardly: the downwelling is mainly at the edge of the sea-ice where temperatures hardly change and are always near zero. The area may change in total surface, thus varying in total amount of water which is downwelling (some 30% between winter and summer), but in average the amount of water which is upwelling and sinking must be in equilibrium. Water doesn’t pile up (except near huge land masses)…
substantial in terms of CO2 transport
Not at all: If there was zero contact with the atmosphere, the same amount of CO2 which is upwelling is going back into the deep. The open contact with the atmosphere of the “mixed layer”, the upper ~200 meters of the oceans, is what gives the changes: release in the warmer parts, uptake in the colder parts, directly proportional to the local pCO2 difference. In average more uptake than release…
You give me headaches when you say things like that.
Sorry, but what I said is quite elementary for ocean chemistry. Lots of textbooks on that.
The main points are:
The practical isolation of the oceans surface from the deep oceans for most of the surface, except for upwelling and downwelling zones which are less than 5% each of the total ocean surface. That gives that only the CO2/derivatives amounts in the surface play a role which are about the same as in the atmosphere (1000 GtC vs. 800 GtC). The bulk of the carbon varieties in the deep oceans don’t play any direct role, only via the upwelling.
The second important point is carbonate chemistry, which makes that any CO2 quantity/pressure change in the atmosphere is met with an only 10% quantity change in the ocean surface. The 30% change in the atmosphere since 1850 (~230 GtC) is good for a 3% change in the ocean surface or ~30 GtC.
A reverse change of 10% in the ocean surface doesn’t give a 100% change in the atmosphere, as for any release (or uptake) by the oceans the total C content is too small to maintain the necessary amount to change CO2 in the bulk of the atmosphere. The new equilibrium is reached, due to the loss in the ocean surface, long before the 100% change in the atmosphere is met…
Thus any change in temperature or upwelling (concentration or total amount) is propagated in the ocean flows from upwelling towards downwelling, but ten times stronger in the atmosphere…
Ferdinand,
You have made two statements that appear to be contradictory:
1) āā If the temperature of the ocean surface increases, that indeed gives that more CO2 is released at the āwarmā side and less is absorbed at the ācoldā side. Thus indeed less CO2 downwells than upwells.ā
2) “Hardly: the downwelling is mainly at the edge of the sea-ice where temperatures hardly change and are always near zero.”
Would you care to comment on how we should reconcile these two statements?
Bartemis March 19, 2016 at 9:30 am
Iām sorry, Ferdinand, but that is just idiotic. What you are describing is simply the equilibration process between atmosphere and ocean. Itās not a pressure that forces more CO2 to downwell.
That is the fundamental problem ā that less CO2 downwells than upwells. That leads to an accumulation of CO2 within the surface waters, which then equilibrates with the atmospheric content.
This is impossible since the downwelling water is colder than the upwelling water and the solubility of CO2 in the colder water is higher. Since there is an equal amount of downwelling water and upwelling more CO2 is carried downwards.
Clyde Spencer:
You have made two statements that appear to be contradictory:
The first statement is for the whole ocean surface: if the total surface temperature increases, more CO2 will be released at the current warm side (everywhere pCO2(ocean) is higher than pCO2(atm)) and less absorbed (where pCO2(ocean is less than pCO2(atm)). The warmer/release area does increase compared to the colder/uptake area. That is only temporarily, as the increasing CO2 pressure in the atmosphere compensates for the extra input and less output.
The second statement is for the upwelling zones and sink zones, where the smallest changes in temperature will be: the equator is capped with a maximum temperature, or will have more heavy thunderstorms or hurricanes and the sinks largely follow the ice edge were temperatures are always near freezing/melting.
There is of course a change in sink quantity of water between summer and winter, which is quite huge and was the origin of the panic years ago that the Gulf Stream was weakening (“The day after Tomorrow”…), but as usual that was based on a spot measurement, contradicted by longer term measurements.
Such a change in sink water quantity can’t last for long, as water can’t pile up and either the sink flow restores or the upwelling must reduce too.
Where Bart gets in trouble is that he somehow expects that CO2 increases in the water mass because still new water with CO2 comes up and that CO2 piles up in the (entire?) ocean surface. Which is impossible, as there is little sideward or forward/backward CO2 exchange in the water itself. The main exchanges are via the atmosphere and to a lesser extent via the biological pump with the deep oceans on a much longer time scale.
Ferdinand Engelbeen @ March 20, 2016 at 1:16 am
“…but in average the amount of water which is upwelling and sinking must be in equilibrium…”
Over very long periods of time. Not instantaneously. Not in a year. Not in 100 years. More like on the timeline of the entire circulation, which is getting near 1000 years.
Phil. @ March 20, 2016 at 5:55 am
“Since there is an equal amount of downwelling water and upwelling …
You are making the same conceptual mistake as Ferdinand. There is no requirement that upwelling and downwelling must be equal and opposite at all times. With a temperature rise at the poles, the area of downwelling shrinks, but there is nothing propelling it faster down, hence the volume downwelling shrinks. In the very long term, if conditions did not change, a new steady state flow distribution regime would be established.
The THC is set up by the temperature differential between the tropics and the poles. No temperature differential, no THC. Clearly, between the extremes of no temperature differential and no THC, and some given temperature differential and some form of THC, there is a whole distribution of potential flow regimes, all dependent on the temperature differential between tropics and poles.
This is not a closed pipeline. There are avenues for flow which depart from the steady current in a non-steady state condition, and this allows continuity of flow when the temperature conditions change. As a matter of fact, the flow is never in perfect steady state. It is the departure from steady flow which influences the climate in general, and CO2 in particular.
This is the big problem with Climate Science in particular, or rather, with the practitioners thereof. Everything is considered to be in steady state, with humans the only disruptive influence. Static accounting then produces wrong answers. It is a bunch of spherical cows.
(how now round cow…)
Bart:
Over very long periods of time. Not instantaneously. Not in a year. Not in 100 years. More like on the timeline of the entire circulation, which is getting near 1000 years.
Unbelievable. Thus you really think that water piles up in one place and needs a 1,000 years to flow towards places where the levels are lower?
Sorry Bart, you simply invent the craziest things which violate all physical laws just to save your theory…
The Gulf stream transports 30 million m3 water per second.
The surface where the main sinks are can be estimated at about 2.5 million km2
If the sinks suddenly stop all sinking, the Gulf stream would pile up its water at the sink places at a rate of 15 million m3 per second (by wind, half the normal speed). That is 15 km3 per second or spread over the full sink surface some 6 mm per second increase in height. In an hour some 22 meters, far enough to bring the sink flows back to life…
The above is of course as crazy as thinking that a small change in temperature has any effect on some piling up of waters at the sink places…
Besides that all, even if that would happen, that has zero interest for the behavior of CO2 in the same waters, piling up or not: the residual CO2 in the waters is determined by its exchange with the atmosphere, regardless how much waters are upwelling or downwelling: CO2 is not exchanged within the water fluxes.
No temperature differential, no THC.
Half the THC at the sinks is caused by the SW winds, half by temperature and the latter mainly by ice formation at constant temperature, as that expels salts which gives the necessary density increase of the remaining waters.
In summer the ice melts, thus decreasing the density. Despite that, the THC remains at about 70% strength. That is because wind speed takes the other part in the driver seat together with the surge at the upwelling side.
Almost all of the upwelling is caused by wind speed: land side winds like the Trade winds blow the waters away from the coast, pulling deep ocean waters out of the depth, despite its (much) higher density. Nothing to do with temperature at the surface.
Thus 30% change in the water flow is indirectly caused by the huge seasonal temperature change in the high North. Even so the loss of ice over the past decades had no measurable influence on the THC water flow, as far as that is (only recently) monitored…
http://www.rapid.ac.uk/rapidmoc/overview.php
Ferdinand, you really have such a limited outlook. You really should not be in this debate at all. It is just beyond your level.
It is the distribution of flow that changes. A temperature change, sustained long enough, changes the entire character of the THC over lengthy intervals. In the near term, that means attendant variables exhibit essentially integral relationships.
There is zero doubt about it, Ferdinand. The phenomenal match between dCO2/dt and T is no accident.
Bart:
Ferdinand, you really have such a limited outlook. You really should not be in this debate at all. It is just beyond your level.
Bart, as said before, you know extremely much about high frequency processes, but you simply have no idea how the real oceanic world works. Your “piling up” of water is physically impossible and your piling up of CO2 into that pile of water is even less possible.
Think at that as if you have an Olympic swimming pool (50 x 20 x 3 m – 3000 m3) where at one side warm water is pumped in and at the other side the water is drained down and recycled via the heat exchangers. The waters cool down during their travel from one side to the other side, about 1Ā°C, which makes that the total volume shrinks with ~3 m3, or the level shrinks from 3 m depth to 2.997 m depth.
According to your reasoning, that should be measurable as a smaller depth at the drain side than at the supply side. In the real world, that is not measurable at all as the level change is back propagated over the whole pool and you will hardly find any difference.
Make it worse by clogging the drain: in first instance the water level at the sink should increase, because the flow doesn’t stop immediately, but again the back propagation over the whole pool is much faster and the level everywhere will hardly change. As the drain is clogged, the supply will go down too and the in/out fluxes simply get back into equilibrium at a much lower level than before.
Thus your:
It is the distribution of flow that changes. A temperature change, sustained long enough, changes the entire character of the THC over lengthy intervals.
Agreed, that happened during the LIA (less of the Gulf stream going North) and during the 8.2 kyear event, where less to zero waters did sink near the ice edge. So, flows change, sinks change, but that didn’t give any piling up of water (but wind patterns do) or CO2. To the contrary: less downwelling did give lower temperatures and therefore a drop in CO2 levels…
In the near term, that means attendant variables exhibit essentially integral relationships.
That is only possible in your imagination, where there is an only one-way CO2 exchange from the non-existing piling up of waters and the non-existing piling up of CO2 in those waters into the atmosphere, never reverse. Not even with the measured 250 Ī¼atm higher CO2 pressure in the atmosphere than in the cold polar sinking waters…
The phenomenal match between dCO2/dt and T is no accident
The phenomenal match between the variability of T and dCO2/dt is no accident: that is the result of a transient response with sufficient lag, which synchronizes both. The match of the slopes is entirely spurious, as the process that causes the transient response of the variability is from vegetation, which is a net sink over periods longer than 3 years. Thus has a negative slope against temperature or a small negative offset in the derivatives.
In summary: You really should not be in this debate at all. It is just below your level, too simple for you…
“The match of the slopes is entirely spurious…”
But it is more than just the match of the slopes here. The carbon growth and temperature track one another in a near perfect match for the entire length of the mauna loa data set. There is no reason that temperature should be tracking with carbon growth where ever it goes if temperature has nothing to do with carbon growth (and no amount of “curve fitting” is going to make that happen…)
“Your āpiling upā of water is physically impossible and your piling up of CO2 into that pile of water is even less possible.”
Nobody is talking about water piling up, Ferdinand. Water is a fluid medium. It can bulge in places, but it does not “pile up” because it flows. Instead of “piling up”, it redistributes its flow.
The change in distribution of the THC has major effects on the transport of CO2, and therefore its distribution all along its path.
“According to your reasoning, that should be measurable as a smaller depth at the drain side than at the supply side.”
There is no “drain”. This is not a kitchen sink. It is a solid body of water which experiences a circulating flow because of TEMPERATURE DIFFERENTIAL.
“Agreed, that happened during the LIA…”
Then what are you going on about in the above?
“So, flows change, sinks change, but that didnāt give any piling up of water [see above](but wind patterns [also driven by temperature differentials] do) or CO2.”
If you change the temperature distribution, and the flow, then you will surely change the CO2 distribution.
“The match of the slopes is entirely spurious…”
Be serious, Ferdinand. Be honest with yourself. The odds of this occurring by chance are a million to one. If you think you can beat these odds, you might as well invest all your savings in the lottery.
Bart, i thought i’d reproduce here anthony’s “quote of the week” regarding dr spencer shutting down his comment page:
The amount of energy necessary to refute b.s. is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
Somebody also added a comment saying that when you argue with an idiot then two idiots are arguing. Refuting ferdinand on his nonsense regarding the graph (of carbon growth rate/ temperature) should not be anywhere near this difficult and yet it is… Doing so seems to be a microcosm of the larger agw debate. There seems to me to be alot of “alinski” type elements at play in the agw debate, ferdinand being no exception to that. There is power in stupidity and nobody plays it stupid better than the one man who frankly, i believe, doesn’t have a stupid bone in his body, ferdinand… He knows what he’s doing, he’s no idiot. I hope we don’t have to wait til a prolonged period of cooling takes place (with it’s reduction in carbon growth) before he admits the error of his ways. Not because i actually care about what he thinks (like cotton he can and should be easily ignored), rather it’s stifling the debate on the carbon data. Still up for grabs, i think, is the question of whether or not the rise in carbon levels is anthropogenic. It’s not inconceivable that what we’re seeing is an anthro rise that is being highly regulated by temperature. The sad part being that ferdinand may well be the only person truly qualified to make the argument. What i’m seeing here is a waste of your energies (which readers like me benefit highly from, thanx…) and, as well, a waste of ferdinand’s giftedness. The latter being something that no one benefits from, especially ferdinand. Maybe yer humble fonz can knock some sense into him, my theory being that it takes an idiot to refute an idiot (and i ain’t too bright). This is the type of thing that i’d like to be doing here on “planet watts”…
Bart,
As I am travelling now, only a short answer. As long as there is water upwelling, there must be water downwelling somewhere, somehow at the same quantity in short time. That means that CO2 canĀ“t pile up in these waters, as what comes up will sink again, or it gets in the atmosphere where it will equilibrate with the sinks towards a new steady state, whatever that may be. A continuous increase of CO2 is simply impossisble without feedback from the increased pressue in the atmosphere, whatever the THC circulation does.
Fonzie, these are two possibilities, either all variability and the slope are caused by tempersture, or all variability is temperature caused and the slope is from human emissions. Mathematically, both near perfectly fit the curve in the past 55 years. BartĀ“s solution violates all other observations, which he just waves away. My solution fits all observations… So, who is right here?
Ferdinand:
“As long as there is water upwelling, there must be water downwelling somewhere, somehow at the same quantity in short time.”
Not so. At all. You have constructed a perpetual motion machine.
Just slosh your cup of coffee around. You have set up a current, swirling from top to bottom and back up again. When you stop sloshing, does the coffee keep swirling ad infinitum? Of course not. The currents were driven by your sloshing motion. When you stop, the current dissipates.
Or, submerge a pump in a tank of water, and bring the output hose up near the surface and direct it back down again. You have set up a current from the hose to the pump, and necessarily, from the pump back to the point where the hose is pumping it back in. Turn the power to the pump up and down. Does the current stay steady? Of course not. Does the water “pile up” anywhere? No, it may bulge a tiny bit here and there, but it remains continuously flowing. Turn off the pump. Does the current remain? No. It continues circulating for a bit, and due to the lag, it continues flowing in some parts but not in others, and it gradually peters out, with the flow diverging in random directions until it settles down into standard Brownian motion.
The THC is driven by the temperature differential. Modulating the temperature has the same effect as turning the pump higher and lower, or sloshing your coffee cup more or less. The flow distribution shifts, and everything transported by that flow also shifts in distribution.
“My solution fits all observations…”
It doesn’t explain the remarkable match between the trend in dCO2/dt and T when scaled to match the variation. Have you invested your savings in the lottery?
Fonzie š
Bart,
You are trying to divert the attention…
70% of the MOC/THC is caused by wind, 30% by temperature, the difference between winter and summer, which is a little more than the few tenths of a degree in the past decades.
The perpetuum mobile is the earth turning around its axis, forming the trade winds around the equator and the extra-tropical Westerlies, which are SW in the North Atlantic thanks to the uplift of the Tibetan plateau.
Again, all water which came up with the trade winds must go down somewhere, taking CO2 with it down, where all exchanges are with the atmosphere, not within the waterflow backward or forward, watever the pattern followed. Temperature defines the pCO2 pressure of the waters, the pCO2 difference between water and atmosphere defines the direction and speed of the exchange. That gives that any change in temperature of the ocean surface is met with a change in pressure in the atmosphere of 16 ppmv/K.
There is no measurable change in overturning waters of the THC from a small change in temperature and even if it was the case, its influence on CO2 levels is minimal, completely dwarfed by a few years human emissions.
BTW, I never buy anything from a lotterie, as I know the odds to win. If the odds where the same as the chance to match the slopes of T and dCO2/dt, I would buy one, as that is like filling in 90% of the figures after the draw…
For the moment we have other worries here in my country than discussing CO2… See you next time.
“For the moment we have other worries here in my country than discussing CO2ā¦”
I want to express my sincerest condolences and sympathy, and wishes for speedy recovery and justice. It is just terrible. We stand with you here in the US. I pray that none of your loved ones were directly caught up in it.
The rest pales in comparison. But, when you get around to it again…
“70% of the MOC/THC is caused by wind…”
In the first place, the THC does not flow to the depths of the oceans due to wind. In the second place, wind patterns are also determined by temperature differentials (and, to a lesser extent, tidal forces).
“The perpetuum mobile is the earth turning around its axis, forming the trade winds around the equator and the extra-tropical Westerlies, which are SW in the North Atlantic thanks to the uplift of the Tibetan plateau.”
No. In the steady state, a spinning body experiences no net motion of any of its constituents, fluid or otherwise. This is well known from the field of spin stabilized satellites which use fluid filled vessels to damp nutation. Once the state of minimum energy is assumed, all motion ceases. The spin will produce coriolis effects against masses in motion relative to the spinning body, but those require something to produce the initial movement. There are two sources of the initial motion for the Earth’s oceans (and atmosphere): 1) the temperature differentials 2) tidal forces, particularly solar and lunar.
“There is no measurable change in overturning waters of the THC from a small change in temperature and even if it was the case, its influence on CO2 levels is minimal, completely dwarfed by a few years human emissions.”
A) it has not been measured. B) the second part is just an assertion.
Bart, you can rest assured that ferdinand wouldn’t waste a single euro with odds like that. It isn’t himself that he’s being dishonest with, it’s you…
Bart:
I want to express my sincerest condolences and sympathy, and wishes for speedy recovery and justice.
Thanks a lot! The whole country is in shock. Such a blind terror… As far as I know, no relatives or friends directly involved, be it with some good luck: a niece and nephew of our son in law were one metro train before and after the one which was bombed… Terrible for those who are direct family of the people killed or injured.
About the upwelling / downwelling…
Was preparing a long rebuttal, but Anthony provided one today:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/23/study-there-is-no-real-evidence-for-a-diminishing-trend-of-the-atlantic-meridional-overturning-circulation/
And the recent direct measurements don’t show much trend either:
http://www.rapid.ac.uk/rapidmoc/overview.php
The winter-summer difference in temperature is about 35Ā°C that gives an about 30% change in sink rate, where in winter the area of ice formation (and thus salt expelling) is maximal and in summer the thinning of the waters with fresh water from the melting ice is maximal.
If we may assume that the 0.6Ā°C warming in the past 55 years has a similar effect as the 35Ā°C winter-summer difference, then the change in flux would be around 0.5%. As the accompanying CO2 circulation is around 40 GtC/year, that means a change of 0.2 GtC/year and in net CO2 sink rate (currently ~3 GtC/year), that will give 0.015 GtC/year less uptake from the ~9 GtC/year human emissions…
BTW, the winds are mainly caused by temperature differences, but the direction of the trade winds is by the Coriolis effect, caused by the earth’s rotation. That causes the upwelling off the South American coast and the SW-NE direction of the Gulf Stream winds and stream.
“If we may assume that…”
We may not. Even were your numbers correct, systems rarely respond the same to high frequency inputs the same as they do to low frequency inputs.
“…but the direction of the trade winds is by…”
Again, the primary movers are temperature differentials and, to a lesser degree, tidal effects. Take them away, and there would be little net relative motion.
Look, there no real doubt about this. The match between temperature anomaly and the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 is as perfect as you can get in this universe. You’re grasping at straws.
I think we’re done for this round. Be safe.
Bart, you say –
“Look, there no real doubt about this. The match between temperature anomaly and the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 is as perfect as you can get in this universe.”
Look & learn
‘The danger of mixing up causality and correlation’
Ionica Smeets
saveenergy, nice little video… not quite sure how it applies here though. Of the examples in the video, they either show that causation is the other way around or that both are caused by something else. Neither of these are applicable here. CO2 is not causing the changes in temperature nor is there something else out there that is causing both temperature and CO2 to go up in unison. What ferdinand is suggesting is that there is NO causation at all for what bart is saying. It’s just happening by chance, a coincidence. (that’s why bart is suggesting that ferdinand purchase lottery tickets…) I am trivializing ferdinand’s position a tad. He’s saying that the short term variability of carbon growth is caused by temperature. He’s also saying that the match of the slopes is caused by “curve fitting” (adjusting the scale of the graphs so that the slopes match). What he doesn’t account for is all the other features of the graphs that make them a near perfect fit for over half a century. Temperature could have been ANYTHING over the course of half a century, but it just so happened to be what it had to be to make the two a near perfect fit when scaled to size. Now, i personally think that causation is a separate issue. (could this be an anthropogenic rise that is somehow being regulated by temperature?) It is enough to recognize that the carbon growthrate is in lock step with temperature. That means that china can build as many factories as it wants and carbon growth will not be affected by that. What this means for policy makers is that carbon growth cannot be legislated and any effort at cutting emissions is an effort in futility. This alone should be enough to kill AGW politically, all that’s left being mitigation…
Fonzie,
I do agree with Bart that most (66% according to Pieter Tans of NOAA) of the CO2 variability is caused by temperature variability. That is the reaction of vegetation, mainly the Amazon, on temperature and precipitation. Where we differ in opinion, is that the slope is caused by temperature.
Both temperature and human emissions do increase over time. Both have a contribution to the CO2 rise. In Bart’s opinion near 100% by temperature, in my opinion 10% temperature, 90% human.
The problem with Bart’s approach is that is solely based on curve fitting of two straight lines: temperature and dCO2/dt which is an easy fit, except for extreme differences in slopes. As he uses one factor for amplitude of the variability and for the slope, that only fits if both slopes are not to far from each other. For the HadCRUT temperature scale the match of the slopes gives some 50% of the amplitudes of the variability.
That the reaction of vegetation is at the base of the short-term (1-3 years) variability is proven by the opposite CO2 and Ī“13C changes. Vegetation is not the cause of the increase in the atmosphere: that is a growing sink for CO2. Thus while vegetation is the cause of the variability, it is not the cause of the slope, which is driven by a separate process. Maybe temperature, maybe human emissions or a mix of both. Anyway, the one-factor-explains-all is certainly false, as variability and slope have nothing to do with each other.
One can have exactly the same fit as Bart’s by assuming that all variability is from temperature variability on vegetation (transient 4-5 ppmv/Ā°C) and some of the slope is from warming oceans (16 ppmv/Ā°C), while the rest of the slope is from human emissions, which are in average about twice the observed increase. The net sink rate in average assumed to be directly in ratio to the increased CO2 pressure in the atmosphere above steady state per Henry’s law. That is the red line in following graph:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/had_co2_emiss_nat_deriv.jpg
You see, no problem at all to match variability and slope with a complete different approach. The difference between the two: my approach is based on physical laws, known for several hundreds of years and fit all available observations. Bart’s approach is based on curve fitting only and violates all observations, especially the measured solubility of CO2 in seawater (with over three million samples over time) over a huge temperature range…
I’m struggling to see where this world economy is growing. I can’t seem to find it.
A quote comes to mind; “Lies, damn lies, and statistics”.
Perhaps they have not heard of the financial crash of 2008, and the Chinese slow down.
Perhaps they mean that the world economy is growing for businesses they approve of. Like government-funded things. Everything else can disappear and it’d be just fine.
Oh good; I’ll sleep ever so much better tonight.
sarc/
The human CO2 emissions trend and the CO2 concentration trend are not necessarily interchangeable or undifferentiated.
“Scientific” American.
The people who Al Gore told, ”you made the sky hot you owe me money”
and they agreed that yes, using fire made the sky hot, so everyone needs to give Al Gore money.
”Science.”
I wish the sky was a little hotter up here in Canada right now.
I lost interest when Martin Gardner (“Mathematical Games”) retired. That was about the time S.A.started the lurch into advocacy and started chucking objectivity and rigor.
Brian,
It is interesting how many technical people I know, generally the older generation, that share your opinion about the decline in the quality and objectivity of SciAmer. The problem seems to be that the younger editors don’t realize (or care) that the reputation of the magazine has declined under their leadership.
“… there doesnāt seem to be a noticeable change to the Mauna Loa CO2 trend, though who knows ā perhaps it is too early to tell.”
When Earth warms CO2 is released.
So they’ll soon be saying “it’s worse than we thought!” … la-la-la
This is just a bait ‘n switch setup for their next planned fear freak-out.
Declare victory then hide to avoid prosecution? — Eugene WR Gallun
So they are confirming the very short and obviously short residence time of CO2 emissions (from any source) to the atmosphere??????
But this is fantastic ! If there has been no increase in CO2, then there is no need for Paris agreements to be enacted err….hang on a sec, that’s not what we meant.
If World temperatures drop in the future, the Greens will be in there claiming that the drop was caused by reduced CO2 levels caused by increased numbers of Solar units, Wind Turbines and dead birds.
I wonder if the greenies have factored this green-energy debacle into their calculations:
http://themarcusreview.com/2016/03/16/tasmanias-energy-scandal/
This is what happens when you rely on hydro power to the tune of 70% of your energy supply and introduce a carbon tax.
An entire state of Australia now has to rely on 200 temporary diesel generators to keep the lights on.
MP – thank you for posting this link. It’s one thing to read about corruption in my own country (USA), which I’ve unfortunately become desensitized about, but for some reason it really saddens me to read about corruption in other countries like Australia, and yesterday reading the same about New Zealand.
On reflection, I think there was always hope that somewhere, some place, there exists places free from the insanity and corruption so pervasive in my own country. I’m realizing if I wish to avoid despair, I need to change my focus from governments, which seem to be mostly the same all over (corrupt), and instead on the people, which I believe are mostly good (even wonderful?) all over the world.
You’re welcome Stevan. It’s really sad to see this being replicated everywhere in the world. I don’t know what’s saddest – the fact that this keeps happening or society’s general apathy towards it all.
That article is simply brilliant. It deserves a page of its own.
This has to be the winner of the ‘you could not make it up’ awards, for the last decade. But the question has to be, is anyone swinging from a lamppost, for this? I don’t suppose so – they never do. Above a certain pay grade, you just move from one plum job to another, no matter how big the mess up.
R
Thank you for the very kind feedback ralfellis, it’s greatly appreciated. Once you start digging a couple of layers deep into these stories, it is absolutely amazing what you find. Call me cynical, but I doubt that anything whatsoever will happen to the chief architects of this disaster. I have little doubt that the government ‘inquiry’ (when it comes) will simply blame the weather and ‘bad luck’ with the Basslink cable.
Is it true that they assess human emissions by looking sales of oil coal and such?
The rate of CO2 growth has not followed emission spikes, given the claims of the natural CO2 budget balance, emissions from the surface should correlate with rises in CO2 growth, but this has not been the case. Especially between 1980ish and 2005 emissions (production\sales) skyrocketed and the rate of CO2 growth in the atmosphere trundled along.
Can’t have it both ways, now the rate of CO2 growth is still steady regardless of what we do with emissions (actually production and sales)
Though to be totally honest, I think it is insane to assume that natural sources are even part of the cause of CO2 growth.
If humans are the cause, then one might wonder exactly how our spikes in emissions are buffered so as to produce a steady curve in growth when emissions increase is anything but steady over the past 60 years.
So it might just be that this rise in CO2 growth is not even disturbed by human emissions and is of a greater order than human emissions, and absorbs our increased surface emissions without affecting growth.
So are we throwing a bucket of water into a river and thinking we are changing the river?
*Assume that natural sources are NOT the cause of growth of CO2 in the atmosphere
Mark, I thought your first comment was perfectly reasonable. We are putting gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Atmospheric CO2 levels are rising quite dramatically at a similar order of magnitude. It is very convoluted argument to say that they are not related.
Occam’s* razor is often mis-used. It is not the simplest explanation that should be favored, but the one requiring fewest assumptions. The explanation requiring fewest assumptions is that all that extra CO2 being put into the atmosphere is the cause of the rise in CO2 concentration.
*(Relating to my earlier comment, definitely want the apostrophe there.)
“The explanation requiring fewest assumptions is that all that extra CO2 being put into the atmosphere is the cause of the rise in CO2 concentration.”
Don’t know that to be true. CO2 concentrations increase and decrease by various processes only some of which we understand. I think the explanation that which requires the fewest assumptions is that at best we only have a vague idea and guesses at whats going on with CO2 concentrations and it’s affects.
Mark,
There are hardly any spikes in human emissions, mostly a monotonic increase over time. Only delayed with economic crisis… In general the total increase over time is slightly quadratic and so is the increase in the atmosphere and so is the difference: the net sink rate of nature.
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg
If you look at the derivatives, thus largely removing the trends, you will see a lot of year by year variability in sink rate and thus increase in the atmosphere. That is caused by the short term influence of mainly temperature (and rain patterns) on mainly (tropical) vegetation, which levels of to below zero (plants are an increasing sink) after 1-3 years.
The momentary sink rate is highly variable due to temperature variability, but the average sink rate is quite linear in ratio with the pressure difference as measured in the atmosphere and what it would be at steady state for the (ocean surface) temperature of any given year. The main driver is thus the total increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, to a lesser extent the ocean temperature and even less for the momentary human input. The calculated residual increase in the atmosphere is in the middle of the variability:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em6.jpg
It is to be expected that the current El NiƱo has a similar effect: a temporarily increase in CO2 rate of change, which lasts as long as the temperatures remain high…
Data from NOAA tell a different story
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net//GISS-NOAA1.gif
What “sink” now exists that did not exist in 1965? Yes the world is greener now, but the simple fact that CO2 increase is less than half our emissions indicates that our emissions are not the source, as has been pointed out to you many times, and yet here you are again…
Actually no. The sink rate is not linear. It’s a function of something. I don’t know what that function is,(meaning I don’t know what’s causing it) but I can derive it from the amounts produced over time and how much ended up in the atmosphere. And the corresponding rates of increases are not dependent on anthro inputs. Did we suddenly stop producing the equivalent of 24 billion metric tons of co2 in 1999? (based on the current absorption of half that amount) That would amount to 2 ppm/v. Which percentage of co2 in 1998 was man made and which was natural? The year before the amount was 1.91 ppm/v and for 3 years after 1998 (2.93 ppm/v) the amounts were 0.93, 1.62, and 1.58 ppm/v. Was there a sudden large drop in antro co2 for those 3 years? From the year 1997 to 1998, based on sink rates there would have been an increase in 12 BMT produced. For the years 1999, 2000, and 2001 I can’t account for 24 BMT if the production of co2 had remained level. Must be magic math…. poof !!
Ferdinand,
Climate is commonly defined as the 30-year average of weather, and there appears to be a clear 22-year periodicity in temperature records. Why did you use a 21-year moving average instead of 22 or 30?
Michael Moon
What āsinkā now exists that did not exist in 1965? Yes the world is greener now, but the simple fact that CO2 increase is less than half our emissions indicates that our emissions are not the source
Michael compare it to water in a not fully closed washbasin: you add water with increasing speed, but the drain increases its speed too, because the height in the basin increases, which gives an increased pressure on the drain and thus more water loss.
Thus the same sink (mainly the oceans) simply remove more CO2 if the CO2 pressure in the atmosphere increases…
If the increase in the atmosphere was larger than human emissions, that would point to another source while the opposite in fact excludes another source…
rishrac
residual CO2 = human emissions – f*ĪpCO2(atmosfeer – CO2base)
where
f = the linear sink rate (about 2,15 ppmv/year for 110 ppmv pressure difference)
CO2base = 290 ppmv (1900) + 16 * (T – To) where To is the temperature in 1900
That gives:
dCO2/year = X GtC/year – (2.15 / 110) * (ppmv(atm) – 290 + 16 * (T – To))
That is the red line in the above graph…
Clyde:
Climate is commonly defined as the 30-year average of weather, and there appears to be a clear 22-year periodicity in temperature records. Why did you use a 21-year moving average instead of 22 or 30?
The 21-year moving average has no meaning here, it was in response to another discussion where the opponent used a 21-year moving average to “prove” that temperature was the cause of the CO2 increase over the period 1980-2000, Can you imagine how good the two lines did match? I then had extended the graphs to 1900 and then you see the discrepancies…
rishrac,
Forgot to add:
The overall sink rate is surprisingly linear if you average the sink rates over longer periods. The problem is that temperature influences are very huge on short (1-3 years) term, but these level off to zero over longer periods.
The net sink rate is thus a combination of pressure difference between atmosphere and equilibrium pressure at one side, heavily modulated by the year by year temperature variations on the other side.
More details at:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_variability.html#The_variability
The Toronto Sun
” Plan to put wind turbine next to airport ‘crazy’ ”
http://www.torontosun.com/2016/03/17/plan-to-put-wind-turbine-next-to-airport-crazy
Sorry folks, the greenies aren’t being inconsistent. Here’s their argument.
1 – CO2 has a long residence time in the atmosphere.
2 – We are still pumping a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere.
3 – Therefore the CO2 in the atmosphere will continue to increase.
4 – The CO2 in the atmosphere won’t stop increasing until we completely quit emitting CO2.
That’s their argument and they’re sticking to it.
..So stop breathing !!
First the pause in temperature now a pause in CO2. They better hurry up and adjust those numbers or it will make a right mess of the settled science.
Thank you greenies I can sleep easy tonite with my bambillo pillow and foam mattress knowing the world is safe from that nasty carbon stuff !
I read somewhere recently that that Mauna Loa trend is cofirmed by Co2 measurements at Cape Grim, which has apparently been more or less stable for the last two years.
“However, there are several issues with this claim.”
including the absence of a correlation between emissions and warming
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2725743
There isn’t necessarily a disconnect between flat energy sector emissions and faster growth of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa: maybe CO2 emissions increased.in other sectors of the economy, such as transportation.
Gary,
I thought that transportation was considered part of the energy sector, in contrast to, say, calcining of limestone to make cement.
Constant level of human CO2 emissions and constant rate of CO2 concentrations increase are consistent with each other. I don’t really think, though, that it counts as success in avoiding rise of atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
Maybe you should look at the record of co2. Human increase in co2 is a given, the constant rate of co2 concentrations is not.
I wonder if the same change in trend was previously observed during the extreme El Ninos. Great article thanks for sharing
People are missing the point about great uncertainty in estimating CO2 emissions from burning fuels. The base uncertainty is 5%, even if fuel reserves are measured accurately. The better test is to compare directly fuel consumption itself with temperature change.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/claim-fossil-fuels-cause-global-warming/
Everything about uncertainty of measuring CO2 emissions (but were afaid to ask)
http://www.ghgprotocol.org/files/ghgp/tools/ghg-uncertainty.pdf
Correction: the above protocol was updated in 2011. Here is the more recent (and easier to read) version:
http://www.ghgprotocol.org/files/ghgp/tools/Quantitative%20Uncertainty%20Guidance.pdf
Buried in the notes of the above document:
Note that the uncertainty of the global warming potential (GWP) for the six GHG Protocol gasses is
assumed to be Ā± 35% for the 90% confidence interval (see Section 7.2).
Mauna Lau CO2 vs New Satellite CO2?
Has anyone done a study?
If have seems maps of the satellite data on WUWT showing the variation of CO2 over the globe and it clearly showed that CO2 was not well mixed as assumed.
How does the average obtained from the satellite data compare to the single Mauna Lau measurement?
The satellite data agrees well with the M-L, S Pole, Cape Grim etc data and clearly shows that the CO2 is well mixed (it is not perfectly mixed as that would require instantaneous dispersal around the globe which no-one has ever suggested).
Phil,
I think we could use a definition of what you mean by “agrees well,” and “well mixed.” Personally, I was surprised to see as much variation as I did in “well mixed” CO2 when I saw the first OCO-2 map. I was taught that CO2 was “well mixed,” but I don’t think I ever saw a claim, or even estimate, of what the spatial variance is.
Clyde Spencer March 18, 2016 at 1:07 pm
Phil,
I think we could use a definition of what you mean by āagrees well,ā and āwell mixed.ā Personally, I was surprised to see as much variation as I did in āwell mixedā CO2 when I saw the first OCO-2 map. I was taught that CO2 was āwell mixed,ā but I donāt think I ever saw a claim, or even estimate, of what the spatial variance is.
‘Well mixed’ is certainly covered by Ā±1%.
The range of seasonal variation certainly agrees with the sampling at the surface, the larger variance in the NH vs the SH stations. The M-L data showed us to expect a range of 9ppm during the year so I’m not sure why you were surprised to see such a variance in OCO-2.
Phil,
You said, “āWell mixedā is certainly covered by Ā±1%.”
Well for starters, if my memory serves me correctly, the range in the OCO-2 maps is more like 4% However, since the stations you cite are used to calibrate OCO-2, I’d be surprised if they didn’t “agree well” with the satellite data.
Clyde Spencer March 18, 2016 at 2:42 pm
Phil,
You said, āāWell mixedā is certainly covered by Ā±1%.ā
Well for starters, if my memory serves me correctly, the range in the OCO-2 maps is more like 4% However, since the stations you cite are used to calibrate OCO-2, Iād be surprised if they didnāt āagree wellā with the satellite data.
Firstly, the OCO-2 is not calibrated in the way you claim, secondly the variability over the planet looks more like Ā±1%, but even Ā±2% would constitute ‘well mixed’.
Phil,
You said, “Firstly, the OCO-2 is not calibrated in the way you claim,…” From the OCO-2 website ( http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/science/MeasurementApproach/# ), it states, “The mission plans to conduct regular Target track passes over each of the OCO-2 calibration sites where the ground-based solar-looking Fourier Transform Spectrometers are located. Comparison of space based and ground based measures provides a means to identify and correct systematic and random errors in the OCO-2 Xco2 data products.”
Regardless, if the CO2 measurements at sites like Mauna Loa don’t agree with OCO-2, it should cause some soul searching.
Clyde Spencer March 18, 2016 at 6:43 pm
Phil,
You said, āFirstly, the OCO-2 is not calibrated in the way you claim,ā¦ā
From the OCO-2 website ( http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/science/MeasurementApproach/# ), it states, āThe mission plans to conduct regular Target track passes over each of the OCO-2 calibration sites where the ground-based solar-looking Fourier Transform Spectrometers are located. Comparison of space based and ground based measures provides a means to identify and correct systematic and random errors in the OCO-2 Xco2 data products.ā
Exactly, those are calibration sites (Sahara desert) which are acquiring FT Spectra to compare with the ones taken by the satellite, they are not the land based CO2 measurement sites such as ML, Cape Grim etc.
Full details of the calibration procedure is to be found here:
http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/science/CalibrationOverview/#
Extrapolating the Mauna Loa trend gives a date around 2040 for reaching the “dreaded” level of 450 ppm. Spend trillions and that date may be delayed by a few years. Who voted for that?
Certainly no sign yet of “bending the CO2 curve” downward. Linear trend analysis at Mauna Loa from 1959 to 2015 show an average annual increase of 1.5 ppm/year. From 1990 to 2015, the trend is 1.9 ppm.year. Last four years have shown over 2 ppm/year increases. If sustained, should be in the range of 440-460 ppm by 2050.
Perhaps temperature drives CO2 and not the other way around. In other words CO2 is the dependent variable driven by temperature (and other things) rather than the (most important) independent variable that drives temperature.
“Perhaps temperature drives CO2 and not the other way around.”
It’s not either/or.
Both things occur.
Walt D.,
Temperature was the main driver for CO2 in the pre-industrial past. The opposite effect indeed is rather weak if one looks at times where the temperature hardly moves for a 40 ppmv drop in CO2, like at the end of the previous glacial period (the Eemian).
The historical ratio was about 16 ppmv/Ā°C. With 1Ā°C warming since the LIA, that is good for maximum 16 ppmv, the rest is from human emissions…
Ferdinand,
Interestingly, during the Summer months in the Northern Hemisphere, when CO2 levels are at the seasonal lowest, we have the highest temperatures. Clearly, any potential impact that CO2 has on temperature is overwhelmed by insolation.
I love that graph… 15-point range out of 400, to make a “scary” slope.
Can anyone say… “Broken window fallacy”
Bastiat is not relevant. He was pointing out that a broken window might appear to stimulate the economy, but that is because you do not see what the resources would have been used for if the window was not broken. That is not the case here.
Claiming the economy is improving because of green projects, whist wasting untold billions on white elephant greenery seems very relevant.
Frosty,
Of course it’s relevant. Just look at the misappropriation of resources into alternative power. $Billions wasted every year, which would otherwise go to more productive uses.
But I only minored in Econ, so what do I know?
CO2 goes up, temperature goes up, greens celebrate.
I was always waiting for them to take credit for “the pause.” Maybe next time.
“World Economy Grows without Growth in Global Warming Pollution”
The fact is that there is no “Global Warming Pollution”. CO2 is not pollution.
The other particulate emissions cool the earth as the “team” told us when the “pause” was recognized. They blamed particulate emissions from China as the cooling agent.
Victory over CO2 hail resemble energy ,not quite
World economy and population grows CO2 concentrations remains static
Trees and vegetation must be soaking more CO2 up
Odd, they can see CO2 decoupling from economic growth, but can’t see that CO2 was never coupled with temperature change… must be that new-new math
I really do not trust the MONA Loa measurement since it is right next door to the most active volcano on earth.
Same results in China.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.org/14/2541/2014/acp-14-2541-2014.pdf
I’m extremely happy to see the world economy grow and CO2 emissions stay flat. This means renewables plus replacement of coal with natural gas, plus the gradual shift in the Chinese economy to services, do impact emissions growth.
I also noticed the world’s average surface temperature reached the 1.5 degree C limit, but nothing bad happened. It’s time to celebrate this event/victory with relief, and focus on something else, like the mess in the Middle East.
Eric Worrall said:
The Mauna Loa āyearlyā min/max CO2 ppm trend is quite easy to predict even for someone like myself who is not a Degreed atmospheric scientist, ā¦.. and my 2015 āmaxā prediction was, to wit:
But close only counts in Horseshoes and my prediction was 0.41 ppm to high, to wit:
2015 4 2015.292 403.26 ppm
2015 5 2015.375 403.94 ppm
2015 6 2015.458 402.80 ppm
Source ref: ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt
And February 2016 āmaxā CO2 ppm was 404.02 ppm but the yearly āmaxā CO ppm is still two (2) months from now (mid May) and will probably top out at 405.37 ppm.
Cheers
Your estimate is only high because last year they declared that co2 production had leveled off and there wouldn’t be 1 BMT increase this year. And that 1 BMT translates into 0.41 ppm/v. plus or minus a few hundredths. I am surprised it’s not higher with El Nino. So which do you believe, we really leveled off or even with an El Nino year the sink is expanding?
I believe that their declared giga-tons of co2 production for the previous year is only calculated after they find out what the Mauna Loa āmaxā ppm count was for that year.
Thus, every one of their yearly declared āgiga-tons of human emitted co2ā is in actuality a āhindcastā that is calculated after-the-fact.
A very cogent point if true, Sam. Doing so would make the entire game a circular exercise, and render the claim that humans are driving CO2 levels unfalsifiable.
Bartemis, itās not only true, itās a literal fact, to be exact.
I would say that 90+% of all claims and comments being written or voiced by the CAGWāers about or relative to the atmospheric CO2 ppm quantities are rooted or based in/on the Keeling Curve data (Mauna Loa Record).
DUH, the pre-industrial CO2 ppm quantity of 180 was interpolated via use of Keelingās CO2 data. And DUH, plant stomata proxies proves that the 180 ppm interpolation to be 100% wrong.
Plants die at 150 ppm. At an atmosphere of 180 ppm, plants start to become stressed. I’m using without regard as to whether the data is right or not, the offical data from NOAA. The reason I do that is in the proof that something is very wrong and needs to be explained. Is the CAGW crowd going to contend that the offical numbers are wrong?
The argument can be made that human co2 emissions have saved the planet from another extinction… and ourselves.
Ok it’s all over, The Paris summit was a waste of time, the problem was already solved a couple of years ago and people will be getting a refund on their carbon taxes in the mail soon.
Kidding aside, this is predictable behavior, after blaming modern civilization for bringing the earth to near calamity, now they are taking credit for saving both the earth and civilization. This is a recognizable pattern in politics; identify a severe but vaguely defined problem, take absolute credit for solving the problem, gain wealth and power.
The key is defining a problem that is easily manipulated into being worse or better depending on the political needs of the moment. Climate Change may be the best ever in this regard, since perception of it is so easily manipulated for political gain.
If it is true that CO2 emissions have been flat, it’s due to two factors.
First and foremost, the switch from coal to natural gas for power production, and that is thanks 100% to the fracking revolution.
Secondly, to the ongoing drive by industry to become more efficient. A drive that goes back to the dawn of human history and has nothing to do with the current CO2 scare.
One example I like to use is the LED light bulb. The white light LED is possible because of the invention about a decade ago of the blue light LED. The blue light LED is something the LED industry had been searching for for many years, but it was due to CDs and DVDs, it had nothing to do with energy efficiency.
The shorter the wavelength, the more precisely the beam can be focused. This means that you can get more data onto a CD. (Which is why your blu-ray disc can hold several times as much data as a standard DVD. It also explains why you can read a standard DVD in a blu-ray player, but you can’t read a blu-ray disc in a standard player.)
(Idle question, when we are talking about CD’s and such, why do we call them disc’s and not disk’s?)
It was pure serendipity that the existence of the blue light LED also made white light LEDs possible.
The statement about “human emissions being flat” for the past two years is totally without credibility, because it is based on accounting and voluntary declarations by participating nations, and not all participate to begin with, declarations that may or may not be accurate. In the past many such declarations were shown to be hugely in error, or downright deceptive. At the same time, the measurements of the atmospheric CO2 concentration, for example, at Mauna Kea, show no such plateau at all. So clearly, the declarations and the accounting are in disagreement with observations.
Second, the statement that the global economy continued to grow at the same time is also without credibility, because we know that the global economy is in deep crisis. The origin of the crisis was the China’s stock market crash that nearly halted their own development for a while. This had a chain effect on the whole world economy. The US economy has been extremely sluggish throughout the whole period of the Obama presidency, not in the least because of the actions of his administration that did all it could to paralyze the country’s industrial output. The EU economy, similarly, nearly drew to halt. Africa is a basket case, war in the north, alongside with the unending war in the Middle East, doubtless helped by Obama’s inept foreign policy. Russia’s completely stagnant. Wherever you look, over the past two years, economic malaise prevails. This is not growth.
Why then the double lie? It is a propaganda attempt to brainwash people, Americans in particular, into believing that “green policies” work, and that the whole world has taken action in sympathy with these policies. In other words, resistance is futile. It is a false declaration of success in the face of evident failure.
Paris was a failure, the nations of the world rejecting any mandatory impositions upon their economies. Today we’re seeing Japan budgeting for tens of new coal fired power plants. Australia’s coal exports are booming. The Energiewende in Germany has resulted in increased CO2 emissions from lignite power plants that were brought back on line, even new ones added, as the government terminated nuclear power plants, and as “renewables” destabilized Germany’s power grid. Britain lowered taxes on oil and gas. Poland refused to support calls for more CO2 restrictions within EU. Altogether more than 2000 new coal fired power plants are planned around the world.
And India’s economy has barely taken off. We are yet to see it soar.
This is entirely predictable behavior by the greens. Looking back at the last el nino and the spike in co2 levels, the increase in anthropogenic production would be hard to explain in correlation with the release in co2 from the current el nino. How much of the increase is due to El nino and how much from anthropogenic? If they can tell by isotope ratois, then we need to go back to 1998 to determine the amount from natural increase and anthropogenic. If 1999 was 0.93 ppm/v then fully 2.0 ppm/v was due to natural release assuming no natural release for 1999. The numbers for the sink, growth of co2 and production rates are not consistent.
rsihrac,
See here.
The opposite CO2 and Ī“13C changes show that the temperature influence was mainly in (tropical) vegetation, as result of higher ocean temperatures. These are in general rather CO2 neutral, but during El NiƱo conditions are a (regional) source of CO2. Still emissions were larger than the increase (on a yearly base) thus nature still was a net, but quite variable sink…
BTW, sink rate doesn’t depend of the momentary human emissions but of the total increase of CO2 in the atmosphere above equilibrium for the ocean temperature. The huge variability is mainly from short term responses by vegetation.
Whatever or however it is decribed, the cold hard fact is for the last 10 years the sink has not only gotten bigger but in any one of those 10 could easily sink all the co2 produced in 1965 and half of 1966. It’s not variable but growing. If the sink was as large in 1965 as it is today, the net effect would be a minus 2 ppm/v for that year.
rishrac,
The sinks are growing quasi-linear with the increased pressure in the atmosphere, thus any comparison with the past must taken into account the change in pressure (ppmv). Still emissions are over twice the increase in the atmosphere, or the sinks are about half the emissions, plus the year by year variability caused by short term temperature fluctuations…
Crude Mystery: Where Did 800,000 Barrels of Oil Go?
Tally of unaccounted-for oil hit highest level in 17 years in 2015; oil data is āan imperfect scienceā
http://www.wsj.com/articles/crude-mystery-where-did-800-000-barrels-of-oil-go-1458207004?mod=trending_now_4
The numbers on energy and carbon are at best crude.
“Analysts credited the rise of renewablesāclean energy made up more than 90 percent of new energy production in 2015āfor keeping greenhouse gas emissions flat.”
Can someone translate this talking point? How many coal plants have been taken offline in 2015 and what is the net new contribution of the “new energy production” referenced? Snake oil for sale?
A pause? The createns identified a PAUSE??? Of 2 fricken years???????
But, CO2 at 400ppm was already going to kill us last year! (So they said)
How come they are happy???
A really great read that is the topic here often and is the subtopic every post —>>
Many scientific ātruthsā are, in fact, false
http://qz.com/638059/many-scientific-truths-are-in-fact-false/
————–
“For example, thereās massive academic pressure to publish in journals, and these journals tend to publish exciting studies that show strong results.
āJournals favor novelty, originality, and verification of hypotheses over robustness, stringency of method, reproducibility, and falsifiability,ā Hagger tells Quartz. āTherefore researchers have been driven to finding significant effects, finding things that are novel, testing them on relatively small samples.ā
“This has created a publication bias, where studies that show strong, positive results get published, while similar studies that come up with no significant effects sit at the bottom of researchersā drawers.”
———————–
And now the serious side of Pamela. When rather suddenly, CO2 dramatically rises and then pauses a bit as it bumps slightly up and down at a sharp or flat topped peak (which it is currently doing) for a few hundred years, there actually IS, all kidding aside, cause for worry over climate change.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/ice_core_co2.html
http://www.jerome-chappellaz.com/files/publications/epica-dome-c-record-of-glacial-and-interglacial-intensities-133.pdf
Pamela
Yes l have to agree with you here.
For 3 years l have been waiting for the weather to give me a insight into ice age formation. Now for the rest of this month it seems to be turning up all at once.
Blocking building up in the NE corner of the Pacific driving cold air down across eastern North America. Over the Atlantic a flat Azores high spanning the ocean and high pressure over Greenland. Allowing a strong zonal jet to form between them. For someone who like me is convinced that the ice age was in a large part due to the weather. Then this pattern set up has got my interest.
I’ve been telling folks about this for a while:
CO2 emission rates are peaking and it’s happening without great effort or changing energy forms.
It was predictable because of demographics. Most of the world has falling fertility rates and rates which are less than replacement. Many countries have outright falling populations and many that aren’t there yet have falling working age populations
Decelerating population, aging populations, and technological improvements to efficiency have reduced CO2 emissions. This means, necessarily that CO2 forcing rates are declining and that future warming rates will be less than the already low end rates observed.
+1
Bout 3 years ago I compiled the following statistics via reliable sources, to wit:
Increases in World Population & Atmospheric CO2 by Decade
year — world popul. – % incr. — Dec CO2 ppm – % incr. — avg increase/year
1940 – 2,300,000,000 est. ___ ____ 300 ppm est.
1950 – 2,556,000,053 ā 11.1% ____ 310 ppm – 3.3% —— 1.0 ppm/year
1960 – 3,039,451,023 ā 18.9% ____ 316 ppm ā 1.9% —— 0.6 ppm/year
1970 – 3,706,618,163 ā 21.9% ____ 325 ppm – 2.8% —— 0.9 ppm/year
1980 – 4,453,831,714 ā 20.1% ____ 338 ppm ā 4.0% —– 1.3 ppm/year
1990 – 5,278,639,789 ā 18.5% ____ 354 ppm – 4.7% —– 1.6 ppm/year
2000 – 6,082,966,429 ā 15.2% ____ 369 ppm – 4.2% —– 1.5 ppm/year
2010 – 6,809,972,000 ā 11.9% ____ 389 ppm – 5.4% —– 2.0 ppm/year
2012 – 7,057,075,000 ā 3.62% ____ 394 ppm – 1.3% —– 2.5 ppm/year
Source CO2 ppm: ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt
Based on the above statistics, to wit:
Fact #1 – In 70 years ā world population increased 207% – CO2 increased 31.3%
Fact #2 – Atmospheric CO2 has been steadily and consistently increasing at a rate of 1 to 2 ppm per year for the past 70 years, ā¦ā¦ whereas human generated CO2 releases have been increasing exponentially every year for the past 70 years.
Fact #3 – Global Temperatures have been steadily and consistently increasing a few hundredths or tenths of a degree for the past 70 years, ā¦ā¦. whereas human created infrastructure, housing, vehicles, etc. (Heat Islands) have been increasing exponentially every year for the past 70 years.
Conclusions:
Given the above statistics, it appears to me to be quite obvious that for the past 70 years there is absolutely no direct association or correlation between:
Increases in atmospheric CO2 ppm and world population increases.
Increases in Average Global Temperature and world population increases.
Increases in Average Global Temperature and Heat Islands construction increases.
Increases in Average Global Temperature and atmospheric CO2 ppm increases.
But then of course, ā¦ā¦ I am not looking through Rose Colored Glasses.
Samuel,
An unstated assumption that leads to your conclusions is that the additional people are using fossil fuels in the same proportion as those who came before them. That is obviously false when one takes into consideration the increase in the standard of living of Chinese and Indians in particular. However, even the standard of living of Americans has increased in the last 70 years. That is to say, The CO2 emissions are increasing faster than population because people are using more energy per capita.
Didn’t the Mauna Loa people get the memo to cool it on the CO2?
Has anybody ever proferred a mechanism for the observable fact that atmospheric CO2 levels consistently DROP between the beginning of May to the beginning of October, by 6 to 7 ppm, EVERY year? This includes the warmest months of the year, when the heat *should* be speeding soil gas release, aiding biomass decomposition and degassing the northern oceans.
Plants are eating it.
YUP, and the dead plant biomass is belching it up faster than the live plants can eat it.
And besides that, those live plants are belching it up and out during the night time. Their metabolism doesn’t stop just because there is no Sunlight.
tadchem, the āmechanismā you question that produces the āsteady & consistentā bi-yearly cycling of atmospheric CO2 is the seasonal changes that are instigated by the Spring and Fall equinoxes. To wit:
http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/af315/SamC_40/keelingcurve.gif
And the cause of said ābi-yearly CO2 cyclingā is NOT the near-land temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, ā¦.. but IS in fact the ocean water temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere. The ocean surface area in the SH is far greater than the land surface area in the NH ā¦. and therefore the temperature of the SH ocean waters is the āDRIVERā of the bi-yearly cycling of CO2.
Rubbish! SH Oceanic sites show very little cycling during the year, compared with significant cycling in the NH.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/Baring_Head_NZ_CO2.jpg
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/SIOMLOINSITUTHRU2008.JPG
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/Barrow_CO2.jpg
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/Kermadec_CO2.jpg
Phil, you are comparing the statistics of hamburgers to cumquats. To wit:
Baring Head, NZ, latitude 41.4 S, is only 87 m (285 ft) above sea level.
Kermadec Islands, latitude 29.2 S, at an altitude of 50 m (160 ft) above sea level
Mauna Loa, HI, latitude 19.4 N, is situate at 3397 m (11,141 ft) above sea level.
Barrow, AK, latitude 71.2 N, at an altitude of 3 m (9.8 ft) above sea level.
Samuel C Cogar March 20, 2016 at 5:17 am
Phil, you are comparing the statistics of hamburgers to cumquats. To wit:
Baring Head, NZ, latitude 41.4 S, is only 87 m (285 ft) above sea level.
Kermadec Islands, latitude 29.2 S, at an altitude of 50 m (160 ft) above sea level
Mauna Loa, HI, latitude 19.4 N, is situate at 3397 m (11,141 ft) above sea level.
Barrow, AK, latitude 71.2 N, at an altitude of 3 m (9.8 ft) above sea level.
So what? According to you “the temperature of the SH ocean waters is the āDRIVERā of the bi-yearly cycling of CO2”. How can the temperature of the ocean water not then effect the CO2 concentration a few meters above? The surface data and the satellite data clearly shows that the seasonal variation primarily is driven by the land in the NH (vegetation).
Samuel C Cogar,
Again, the main seasonal drivers are not the oceans but the NH extra-tropical forests which start regrowth in spring, but which full uptake of CO2 takes a few months. That is proven beyond doubt, as CO2 level and Ī“13C increase oppose each other: CO2 uptake is preferentially 12CO2, thus while vegetation increases its uptake in spring-summer-fall, Ī“13C levels will go up as relative more 12CO2 is removed out of the atmosphere than 13CO2:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/seasonal_CO2_d13C_MLO_BRW.jpg
Phil said:
Phil, getta clue, one can not obtain accurate atmospheric CO2 ppm quantities if measured at near-surface locations ā¦ā¦ unless said location is at an extreme altitude or an extreme desert environment of extremely low atmospheric water (H2O) vapor ppm.
Please read the following w/comprehension, to wit:
So Phil, I ask you, just how are they āhunting down and removing the sources of noiseā from the measurements taken at Baring Head, Kermadec and/or Barrow?
Phil also said:
Phil, there is no near-surface CO2 ppm data that is accurate except for āspotā measurements.
And Phil, satellites can not āseeā or detect atmospheric CO2 molecules ā¦.. therefore there is no way in hell they can be used to obtain an accurate CO2 ppm count.
And besides that, it is a biological impossibility for the bi-yearly (average 6 ppm) cycling of atmospheric CO2 to be driven by the land in the NH (vegetation), ā¦. simply because, ā¦ā¦ the ārottingā of the dead bio-mass with the outgassing of great quantities of CO2 …… is occurring at the same time as the āgrowingā of the live bio-mass with the ingassing of great quantities of CO2.
Phil, the following “rules” also apply to the Fall and Winter time “biological activity” on the land in the NH, …. so please read w/comprehension, to wit:
Ferdinand Englebeen,
Why do you continue to insist on averting your eyes and your mind to the fact that the outgassing of CO2 due to the microbial decomposition of dead biomass begins in early Spring at a minimum of 10 to 14 days prior to any ingassing of CO2 due to the springtime growth of live biomass?
DUH, the initial springtime growth of vegetation does not require any ingassing of atmospheric CO2.
Samuel,
If you don’t accept that bacteria simply go on with their work even at air temperatures of -20Ā°C if isolated under a snow deck, then we can’t have a discussion at all…
“In a simple, two-column spreadsheet released yesterday, IEA showed that” … they can massage data just as well as the next guy. They also showed that they are either completely ignorant, or they think everyone else is by essentially stating that economic production has been/can be decoupled from energy production.
IEA is just another international agency being misdirected like all the others. They are in the PR release schedule along with World Bank, IMF, OECD, IPCC, and others. It’s not like they have anything else to do, right?
This is just a climastrologist false flag. They have probably been noting that the temperature may be about to drop in a cooling period (and is flat at present) so they are switching to a “See we did it!” Of course the MSM/greenies and most of the public will ignore the actual continued rise in CO2, at least for some time.
From the ice cores, when CO2 peaks the earth cools and re-glaciates. If CO2 is dropping I would be very, very worried.
Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are a lagging indicator of temperature due to the solubility of CO2 in the oceans. Oceans get cold first, then CO2 goes down. The reverse is also true wrt ocean warming.
Personally, I could care less what the Seance Specific American reports these days. Once upon a time, they did a good job of science. These days, they have become just another religious tract house like the Watchtower.
Climate Math, plus Climate Economics, combined with Climate Logic. What could go wrong?
… and next year, when the temperatures come down thanks to La Nina, they will claim victory over global warming…
Folks, it’s not surprising. Most of the leading emitters ( China, US, Europe, Japan, Russia ) have declining emissions since 2013. India has increasing emissions, as does some of the developing world, and somewhat strangely, South American countries. But as a whole most of humanity has declining emissions to match decelerating populations and accelerating technology. Good news!
http://climatewatcher.webs.com/FallingEmissions.png
..China’s emissions are declining ?? That was a joke right ?
“..Chinaās emissions are declining ?? That was a joke right ?”
No. China’s population about to fall if it isn’t already:
http://en.people.cn/mediafile/201108/02/P201108021529441037117374.jpg
And China’s young population, the kind that drives growth and leaves the lights on has been falling for a decade, while its old population, the kind that slows growth because it’s on a fixed income, is rising rapidly:
http://www.universalconsensus.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/China-population-by-age.gif
Sorry, that chart is working age population, not total. But that too is significant, because consumption, including consumption of energy, is tied to income.
TE,
What’s happening in Greenland???
.. I’m not strictly religious but, you’ve got to find allies where you can !
http://us8.campaign-archive1.com/?u=8fe89cf100dfd0bf13664d610&id=0df5a3e25d&e=ccf4032d2a
I’m definitely not getting the same information about the world economy as they are if they’re saying it’s growing.
Yes, global growth is anemic, but that’s a natural consequence of slowing/falling population.
Production Growth = Productivity X NumberOfProducers
If NumberOfProducers falls, so too will growth.
“Whatever is happening to anthropogenic CO2, there doesnāt seem to be a noticeable change to the Mauna Loa CO2 trend,” – And what change does the author expect there? A drop of CO2 concentration?
The emissions are still there in roughly the same amount as in previous year. So CO2 concentration will still rise.
Now we will see the climate deniers claiming “there is no connection between CO2 made by humans and CO2 in atmosphere as there was no drop in the graph at Mauna Loa”. Oh no, I just gave them a guideline…
But I agree there may be a problem with estimates – especially Chinese communists just want to look good.
Petr Houzar,
What is a “climate denier”? Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds?
Go stand in the back with the other eco-lemmings.
“And what change does the author expect there? A drop of CO2 concentration?”
No, a decrease in its rate of increase.
“The emissions are still there in roughly the same amount as in previous year. So CO2 concentration will still rise.”
But, should be doing so at a reduced rate, if emissions were genuinely the driver.
And will you see that reduced rate in a graph? The difference will be very very small.
Also, of course, the original article speaks only about “Energy-sector emissions of CO2” which are stagnating. Yes, this is the biggest sector, but not the only one.
Not according to your model Bart, according to that it only depends on T.
Bingo, Phil! So, if temperatures are rising due to El Nino, and CO2 rate increases, but emissions stay steady, what does that tell you?
Why do we even care about The “Mauna Loa CO2 trend”. Mt. Mauna Loa is 21 miles away from the Kilauea volcano. It puts out so much SO2 that all the vegetation within a 10 mile radius is either dead or a very sickly grey-green color. CO2 is the #2 gas it emits and the prevailing winds blow toward Mauna Loa.
If you wanted to measure the CO2 in your back yard would you place your sensor next to your charcoal grille?
Ah, but we were told over and over that Mauna Loa measurements are representative of the global atmospheric CO2 concentration. How come it shouldn’t be so now, that these same measurements are suddenly inconvenient to CAGW propagandists?
Actually this is the point. They must eliminate the influence of CO2 absorbed or emitted locally by plants and soils, or emitted locally by human activities. Thats much more important than volcanoes which do not produce much CO2.
The other good station is the South Pole with a very similar levels and trend.
Well, just like Monty Python’s “Black Knight”, this appears to be just a flesh wound…
Governments are most likely lying about their growth numbers. I would rather trust the co2 emissions as a measurement for growth over gdp any day… š
Many greenies are also claiming victory over ozone/CFC controls even though the data contradicts. They will approach AGW in exactly the same way. Claiming victory when CO2 emissions decrease but have NO effect on atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The stream of false propaganda will continue as long as the useful idiots listen and accept. There will be no relief for critical thinkers. Gk
G. Karst,
Correctomundo. When facts, logic and evidence fails the alarmist crowd, they always have their fallback tactic: ‘Say Anything’.
The evidence is pretty shallow for this one. One really needs to have a good handle on emission numbers
and growth in th eeconomy of 3 percent may be quite different than that other year’s growth of 3 percent.
I would say that weather plays a very large part in emissions and doesn’t have much connection to economic growth except probably a negative one. This is why natural experiments such as these are usually unable to nail down dependent and independent variables and their relationship. These experiments depend heavilly upon prior knowledge of the variables and also especially depend upon the intelligence of the experimenter.
What about increased eƱergy efficiency? Light bulbs, car automatic transmissions, and electronic equipment have gotten more efficient and don’t need as much power or fuel as before to perform the same as before.
Further efficiency gains are available, such as by having electronic equipment using LED indicator lamps mode efficient than current usual practice of using LEDs with 1980s technology to save a few pennies. Many homes can get insulation improvements. People can “dress for the weather” when indoors to reduce climate control energy consumption – and cut climate control bills. In summer in hot parts of the US, men could dress like men do in places such as American Samoa – where a majority of men wear knee length skirts, even as office wear. That can reduce air conditioning costs a lot, take a load off of America’s stressed aging poser grids, let our limited fossil fuel supplies last longer, reduƧe air pollution, and reduce the need to spend money on building more power plants.
Likewise in winter, people can wear suits, sweaters, cardigans, thermalwear, whatever and then only need their homes to be warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing. That can free up a lot of money to save, invest or spend on other stuff, along with letting our fossil fuel supplies to last longer until we get fusion or something better actually working.
Note that I cited good reasons for reducing energy consumption that were mentioned as far back as in the 1970s, before we knew we had enough fossil fuel available reserves for our growing global population to have enough to burn to cause atmospheric CO2 to increase as much as has been increasing.
CO2 emissions had an extremely slight decrease in the past year from a high emission rate. As for ozone, the growth of the ozone hole was stopped and slightly reversed, despite signs of rogue halogenated hydrocarbon emissions slowing the reduction of the ozone hole.
If man’s production of CO2 remained the same or even decreased, why does CO2 continue to go higher is man is the cause? CO2 appears to be accelerating on the upside and man cuts back its production. What this is evidence of is that man isn’t the cause of the increase in CO2. Most likely it is the oceans that are warming. Why are the oceans warming? Because more sunlight is reaching them. Nature, not Man, controls atmospheric CO2.
https://youtu.be/QowL2BiGK7o?t=14m34s
Nature, not Man, controls…. EVERYTHING !!
Last year production exceeded the net loss to sinks so the pCO2 increased, no reason to suppose that it wouldn’t do so again if emissions stay constant.
Yet another “Just So” story.
If we continue warming, we will experience continued increasing greening each growing season. That march towards the interglacial warming peak, on a global basis, far outstrips fossil fuel use.
Sounds like to me that this is not victory for green technology but fracking that has increased that fossil fuel we call Natural gas.
The slight global cooling, past 1998 and the oceans not changing in temp past 2003 is causing a standstill in global (human and natural) CO2. This is becoming a problem for the warmers, so they will have to pretend that cuts in human CO2 caused the global CO2 lag.
However, we still emit less than 5% of total CO2, so we still have very little effect on global CO2. There was a El Nino event recently, so there will still be a warming (this time, of cource, especially following the non increase in human CO2) there is no relation between theis warming and human CO2. (I say this fully knowing that El Ninos and La Ninas events have noting whatsoever to do with CO2, human or natural, but just to tell that the warmers now cannot even falsely claim that the warming was caused by CO2).
The lag and soon to come fall in global CO2 levels are caused by global cooling. The oceans are absorbing CO2, whereas they earlier emitted CO2. This will continue for 20-100 years.
But alas for the warmers, this lag and fall has nothing to do with so-called green energy efforts. Humans still do emit CO2, so if we had any effect earlier, we still have that same effect. And that is NONE.
No-one should believe the numbers presented above, because China and India are still firing up coal plants in record numbers with little or no cleaning of outgoing CO2 at all. So replacing 50 European or American coal plants (that were clean, and emitted very little CO2) with windmills (the erection of these let out as much CO2 or more than what the 50 coal plants emitted for 4-5 years) does not reduce CO2, and can not in any way way out the 100s of Chinese and Indian coal plants built and fired up in the same period.
The fall in global CO2 now shows us that human CO2 emissions are irrelevant, not only for global temperatures, but also for global CO2 levels.